Spidey & Speedy: Central City Rush
by Ricky Pine
Summary: Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy come to Central City when a black hole threatens to devour not only the city, but the whole world as well. Of course, the day will be saved by not only The Flash, but Spider-Man as well - and soon, more heroes join forces with them. (AU crossover with Nightwing, iZombie, and Arrow. Ships: PeterxGwen, Dick GraysonxOC.)
1. Begin The Day With A Friendly Voice

**Extended Summary:**

 _Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy couldn't have picked a worse day to come to Central City for a tour of their prestigious university. Because today is the day when a black hole threatens to devour not only the city, but the whole world as well._

 _Of course, the day will be saved by not only The Flash, but Spider-Man as well - and soon, more heroes join forces with them. But what other unexpected effects will the black hole cause?_

 _(Part 1 of the Spidey & Speedy Series. This is an alternate universe fic. Set between TASM 1 and 2, and begins at the end of the S1 finale of The Flash (with canon divergence.) Any and all OC's are owned by me. The Amazing Spider-Man is owned by Sony. The Flash is owned by DC, WB, and Greg Berlanti. Nightwing is owned by DC. iZombie is owned by Vertigo, Spoondoolie, and WB.)_

 _ **CHAPTER 1: BEGIN THE DAY WITH A FRIENDLY VOICE**_

 *****PETER*****

For my first time outside of New York, I don't think I can do much better than going to California. Sure, it's not the sun-kissed, Hollywood-starlet-filled section of the state. But when your school is arranging a special tour of Central City University, one of the best schools for science in America, you want to be the first to sign up.

I was the second, though. Naturally, our class valedictorian was first.

That's right. Gwen Stacy's going to be better than me at everything, now and forever. Better at biology, at physics, at chemistry, and of course at kissing. Not that I'm complaining. Especially not about the last one. Unlike a certain cinematic race for the Holy Grail, the various "competitions" between me and Gwen are the sort of challenge in which there is, in fact, a silver medal for finishing second.

Okay, maybe there isn't a silver medal. But that's okay, I don't need one. I'm a superhero. I don't need more glory. The only reason I get the glory I do is because most people are unaware of who I really am. If they knew New York's most high-profile unofficial crime-fighter (otherwise known as a more polite way of saying "vigilante") was a kid who was still in high school (not to mention still a minor), there would be concerned parents all over the city demanding that I stop doing whatever a spider can.

I'd bet a gajillion dollars - and win - that Aunt May would be joining the ranks of those parents. Never mind that she's not an actual biological parent - since she's helped raise me since I was five, she definitely counts.

On the bus ride from the hotel to the campus, I sit next to Gwen, who's in the window seat. We'd had a Thumb War to determine who would get it - I'd suggested we do a tickle fight, but there was no chance of either of us would do that in public - and, as usual, I found myself coming in second best. But that's okay - if our places were reversed, Gwen would probably have a bit of trouble trying to appreciate the view while peering around my big, bushy-haired head. As it is, though, I still have to look around Gwen to get a really good look out the window if I want to. And by the time I do, whatever I'm looking for has usually gone by. For example, the row of blue-and-silver CCU flags lining the street.

"Look at that," Gwen says, pointing out the window.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" I ask, cursing inwardly as I once again miss whatever it is I'm supposed to be looking at.

"There's another one," Gwen says. "Maybe it repeats itself every so often?"

I lift my head so I can look over hers a bit better. Then I see it - a piece of graffiti on the wall. It's a yellow lightning bolt inscribed in a dark red circle.

"Wonder what that means," I say.

"Maybe it's the logo of the school's sports team?" Gwen asks, laughing at her own joke.

"Totally clashes with the flags, though," I say, laughing alongside her.

When we finally get off the bus, we're supposed to gather on a grassy field on the other side of the Student Union Building from our bus stop. Along the way, Gwen and I spot a few little brand-name eateries, including Pizza Hut and Starbucks. Instead of stopping at any of these, though, we get our refreshments on the lawn, where a big blond dude (who looks like he could be Gwen's older brother or something) is serving ice cream cones.

To our delight, they have the incredibly hard-to-find sea salt flavor. Gwen and I thus spend the next ten minutes or so trying to eat up the delicious pale-blue ice cream before it melts out of our cones under the early-April sun. It's much warmer here than it is in New York at this time of year - unseasonably so, according to this morning's weather report, which predicted 75 degrees for Central City's daytime high today.

There are rows upon rows of folding chairs arranged in front of a podium where a hyper, hyper-caffeinated black woman is working the crowd with a _Jeopardy!_ -style quiz about CCU campus life. We can't sit in any of them, though, because it's literally standing room only. So we end up standing behind the final row. I keep sneaking looks at Gwen as she mutters answers to the lady's quiz questions. Most of them, I can't answer, because I either don't hear them or don't know the answers. Maybe I should have done a tad bit more research before coming here. But it's hard enough to keep up on my school requirements and balance that with being Spider-Man - something I do almost every night, and even sometimes during the day.

"All right, all right!" the woman cries as someone else gets another question right. "Okay, who wants to come up and do the next question? This is a bonus question on local knowledge, so it's one that you're not likely to get right if you're not from around here!" She pauses, then looks down at the crowd before picking one of the many people with an upraised hand. "You there, come on up!" As soon as this person, a dark-skinned girl, makes her way up to the platform, the woman says, "So where are you from?"

"Radcliffe," says the girl.

"All right, Radcliffe representing!" I actually cringe at the sound of this lady's outdated "hip" slang, and I see Gwen doing the same out of the corner of my eye. "Now, your question, in Local History for $400 - or perhaps just a CC Jitters coffee machine, which I honestly need to lay off of" - she pauses to give the crowd, myself and Gwen included, a chance to laugh - "anyway, here goes. What are the two names that have been given to Central City's speedy hometown hero?"

"The Flash," the girl says, "and..." Here she falters, trying to recall what the second name might be. Eventually she gets it. "The Streak."

"Nice save!" the woman says. "Someone's been keeping up with the Flash's press cuttings, haven't they?"

"Hey, Peter, check this out," Gwen says, showing me something on her phone. I take a look and see the name of this "speedy hometown hero" alongside the same logo we saw in the graffiti on the way in to the campus - red circle, yellow lightning.

"I'm sure this guy's cool," I laugh. "But not as cool as I am, right?"

"You keep telling yourself that, Peter," Gwen laughs back. "You just keep telling yourself that."

At this point, I hear a distant, thunder-like booming noise. It takes me a while to figure out where it's coming from, but then I see it - a huge, swirling cloud somewhere over the city center.

The hyper lady on the platform comes to a halt as she, too, is distracted by the menacing cloud. As I walk over to the edge of the lawn to get a better view, I hear Gwen say, "Guess that weather report was lying, huh?"

"Yeah. I guess." I'd snark back at her, but there's something telling me this is even more wrong than it looks. I feel like we should get the hell out of this place, right now.

And all those Spidey-sense-enhanced thoughts run through my head even before the cloud starts sucking up the Central City skyline.

"Oh my God," Gwen says. "Oh my God! What's happening?"

"It looks like a black hole or something!" I yell, pointing at the now-glowing cloud.

"A black hole in the middle of the city?" Gwen yells over the sound of screaming people fleeing the scene. "Is that even possible?"

"No!" I yell. "Uh...it shouldn't be."

"Come on, we gotta get out of here!" Gwen yells, tugging on my arm.

"And go where?" I ask, holding up my camera to take a picture. It's a digital one - I prefer film, but Aunt May convinced me that it would be a terrible idea to bring such expensive equipment cross-country when it could so easily be lost at baggage claim. "It's not like we can just run into a fallout shelter and hope for the best!"

"Everyone seems to be doing exactly that, though," Gwen says, pointing at the crowd as they run into one or another of the buildings around the lawn. With a sigh, I turn from the otherworldly display and follow them, as does Gwen.

As soon as we find ourselves hunkered down in the basement of one of the old brick buildings alongside a bunch of equally terrified high schoolers from all over the country, I take a look at the one picture I was able to take.

To my surprise, there's a yellow streak running up the side of one of the buildings just as it breaks apart and starts getting pulled into the black hole.

I zoom in as much as I can. Could it be? Is that the (distorted and barely perceptible) shape of a person in that lightning?

Is that the Flash?

And, more importantly, why am I not helping him to save the day?

Before Gwen can stop me, I slip out of the basement, leaving my street clothes piled up near the door. Wearing only my Spider-Man outfit, I haul ass off the campus, hoping I can still lend a hand to my fellow superhero.

And hoping that I don't die in the process, or else Gwen and Aunt May will be getting in line and taking numbers to resurrect me only to kill me all over again.


	2. You're Not The Ordinary Type

_**CHAPTER 2: YOU'RE NOT THE ORDINARY TYPE**_

 *****PETER*****

I guess it goes without saying, but I'm nowhere near as fast as the Flash, if that's what the yellow light racing up through the bizarre skyscape of metal and glass fragments is. So by the time I'm even halfway to the epicenter of this whole black hole thing, he's already reached the big bad space-time disturbance and collided with it.

The result is an explosion that fills the sky with piercingly bright white light, which is then followed by a deafening thunderclap and a pretty nasty shock wave. More than one previously-still-intact window shatters as a result. I end up with a few pieces of said windows falling on me, even cutting through my suit.

 _Great,_ I think. _And I didn't bring my sewing kit._

As soon as it's safe to look up again, I do so - and see that the black hole is gone. However, there's a dark red blur coming down from where it had just been. Not a yellow blur. I wonder if that's what the Flash looks like when he's not running practically at the speed of sound.

Wait a minute. If that's him...why is he just letting himself fall? Is he even conscious? If not, it wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure most people, superhero or not, would be at least concussed into oblivion by an impact like the one I just witnessed. Or dead...no, no, no, not dead. I'm not gonna assume the worst.

I stop to see if I can calculate his trajectory. I'm a pretty good visual thinker, if I do say so myself. But running these advanced numbers on the fly is still a serious challenge for me. In any case, it takes me only about ten seconds to figure out where he's headed - by which time he's fallen about five hundred more feet.

I think I can catch him now. Catch him, and bring him safely to earth. But I have to work fast.

I launch weblines from the shooters on both my wrists, wrapping them around a pair of lampposts on either side of the street. Then I pull back on these shooters and wait a couple of seconds before using them to launch myself into the air.

I rise in a very high arc, coming up about two hundred feet before starting to descend again. The Flash, however, is falling at a higher rate, having already reached terminal velocity. So, before long, he draws level with me.

That's when I reach out and grab him. Like I expected, he's unconscious, so I'm forced to awkwardly wrap his arms around me. That way, I can hold on to him with one arm, and use the other to launch another webline with which I can swing us down to the ground.

There's a small group of people gathered on the ground, most of whom are looking up at us. I wonder if these guys are associated with the Flash. Maybe they were trying to help him stop this black hole, wherever it came from.

I take a chance and bring him down to these people. As soon as we land, I see that I made the right call. The group, with the exception of a blond man who's also unconscious (according to a quick glance out of the corner of my eye), descends on the Flash, taking hold of him and trying to revive him.

One of these people, an older black man, turns to me and takes my hand in both of his. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

"Don't thank him just yet," says a twentysomething woman with brown hair. She peels off the Flash's mask, revealing the rest of his face - previously, only the lower half and his eyes were visible. Seeing his whole face, I'm shocked by how much he looks like he could be my older brother. He's got similarly boyish features, messy hair that somehow managed to hide under the spandex of his mask, and huge, thick eyebrows. And I thought the only people with bigger eyebrows than mine were Gandalf, Zachary Quinto, and the Twelfth Doctor.

"Yo!" cries a skater-looking Latino dude. He jumps in front of the girl and the Flash, hiding the latter's face from view. "As another masked hero, I think this guy appreciates the value of anonymity. Don't you think, Caitlin?"

"You've heard of this guy too?" asks a black girl. "I thought he was just an urban legend they talked about in New York."

"Uh...nope, not a legend, urban or otherwise," I say, giving these guys a two-fingered salute. "Greetings from Gotham, huh? I was just in the neighborhood, thought I'd drop by..."

"Thank God you came when you did, though," says the Latino. "Am I right, Spider-Man?"

I rub my hands together. "Uh...yeah. You're welcome, guys. All in a day's work, you know what I mean?" I peer around the Latino and get a better look at the unconscious blond. Except he's not unconscious. Judging from the amount of blood pooled around him, and the gun in his hand, it looks like he's dead. "Holy shit," I whisper. "What happened?"

"It's a long, long story," says the white girl - I think she's the Caitlin the Latino guy was talking to just now.

The black girl, meanwhile, looks over to the blond guy as if remembering he's dead. Tears well up in her eyes as she walks over to him. She must be his girlfriend or something like that.

Between the black hole, the Flash, and the apparent suicide, I still have no idea exactly what's going on. I rub my temples with my knuckles, trying to connect the dots. They're not exactly forming a recognizable shape, though.

The older guy turns to me and says, "Thanks again, uh, Spider-Man. But we got this covered, don't worry. You don't have to hang around."

"You sure?" I ask. As much as I want to get back to Gwen and make sure she's safe, this situation seems pretty important too. But maybe the guy is right - without a good grasp on what's happening, I probably won't be much help around here.

"Don't worry," says the Latino, a strained smile forming on his face as he tries to project an air of breezy confidence. "We do shit like this all the time."

I shrug. "If you say so. But if you guys need me again, I'll be here all week. No, seriously. So, uh, check you later, I guess?" With that, I turn around and head back up the street, then swing away on a webline.

A minute later, I get back to the CCU campus, find the place where I stored my street clothes, and get dressed once again. The student visitors are flooding the lawn again now that they've been given the all-clear. I look around frantically until I spot the telltale shine of Gwen's blonde head. There really aren't all that many blond people around here today, so she stands out in the crowd.

"Hey," I say, taking Gwen's hand for a second. "You miss me?"

Gwen looks up at me with a silly smirk, then gazes out towards the city, which is still pretty badly wrecked - but at least it's free of black holes. "Dare I ask?" she says.

I check my watch - quarter to ten. Unless the schedule's been thrown off by the black hole incident, we have fifteen minutes to get to a brief seminar being hosted by the College of Sciences. And then, we'll have only five minutes to get to a similar seminar for the College of Arts - Gwen's not as interested in that one, but she agreed to go along with me as I look into the possibility of taking up photography classes.

After that, though, I think I'll be able to talk freely to her. "What say we, uh, save the war story for lunch?" I ask.

"Only if you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," Gwen says in her best _Law & Order_ voice. "So help you God."

"What if I'm an atheist?" I counter. "Or what if my God goes by the name of Vishnu?"

"Nice try, Peter," Gwen laughs, setting off and following the marked signs for the College of Sciences.

"All right," I say, grinning at her. "You got a deal."

Before following her, however, I sneak one last glance at the remains of the city skyline. For that one second of looking, and for too many seconds afterwards to count, I think about two questions.

Who is the Flash?

And why did he just have to nearly kill himself canceling the Apocalypse?


	3. Your Possible Pasts

_**CHAPTER 3: YOUR POSSIBLE PASTS**_

 *****BARRY*****

If ever you consider jumping up the ruins of a former skyscraper and running headlong into a black hole, I strongly suggest you get your head examined ASAP. It's very, very, VERY much not recommended. Even if you are a superhero. Even if you can actually run and jump like that, like you're some kind of video game character. Even if you can heal super-hella-fast.

The next thing I remember after that collision, I'm waking up in the same place where my nine-month post-particle-accelerator-accident coma came to an end. I blink rapidly a couple of times, then look up and see Joe, Iris, Cisco, and Caitlin peering down at me.

"Did I grow a third eye or something?" I ask, my voice a little more hazy than I would like.

"He's back! Whoo!" Cisco cries, leaning back so he can safely do a fist-pump without hitting me in the face.

"Or a third nostril? A second mouth?" I grin dopily at everyone. "Come on, guys, what are you looking at me like that for?"

"What, we can't all be concerned for you and your well-being?" Joe asks. He holds out his hand and helps me sit up.

I don't know how long I've been out, but clearly, it's been a while. I'm stripped down to my underwear, hooked up to an IV drip in one arm, and those round EKG contacts are arranged in a row over my chest. I look down and see that, unfortunately, my latest insane encounter with STAR Labs' latest experiment gone awry has not given me more abs to work with. Not that I needed any more, but it would be so cool to add to my less-than-a-year-old six-pack, though.

"Okay," I say, peeling the unwanted sticky stuff off my chest. "Give it to me straight - how long was I out?"

"Two thousand years, and we're all clones of the people you knew and loved in your time," Cisco deadpans.

"More like two thousand seconds," says Caitlin as she smacks Cisco in the shoulder. She pauses to run through the calculation in her head. "Yeah, it's been about half an hour, actually."

"No more nine-month comas for me, then," I laugh as Caitlin undoes the IV in my arm.

"Next time you pull one of those on us," Joe says with a grin, "we might just pull the plug."

I laugh along with him, but the good humor gets sucked out of the room when we both look over at Iris. She's sitting in the corner, hugging her knees. Talking about death...yeah, it's too soon for her to deal with that now. I can talk about it all I want in my own internal monologue - specifically, about how there was really no need for Eddie to have shot himself dead like that, because it was too easy a way to stop Wells-slash-Eobard-Thawne and there had to be a catch to it all.

I could do that - but I could also offer Iris some much-needed comfort. Finding one of the many STAR Labs T-shirts that seem to be laying around this place (it must be from an extra shipment intended for the athletic department or something), I put it on, along with matching sweatpants, and walk over to her just as she's about to get up and possibly walk away.

I don't tell her how sorry I am. She doesn't need to hear it, not when I say it in the hug I give her. I think I hear her whisper, "Thanks, Barry," before she finally disentangles herself from my arms, gets up, and leaves the room for good.

Joe and I both set out to follow her, but he tells me to stay back. "I'll handle this," he says. "You should rest easy a little longer. You just saved the world, after all. You deserve it."

I'm about to object, but there's really no arguing with that paternal tone of voice. So I obediently take a seat on the table where I woke up. I don't strap myself back into the medical machinery, though. I think we all know there's no need for that right now.

"Half an hour, huh?" I ask Caitlin and Cisco. "So, how'd I survive? Don't tell me - I hit the black hole, and then I just miraculously reappeared on the ground and said something like, 'Praise Jesus!'"

"Didn't know you were religious," Cisco says wryly. I think, like me, he's trying to keep his brave face on.

"Neither did I."

"Actually," Caitlin says, looking more serious, "you wouldn't believe who saved your bacon even if we told you."

"Try me."

Caitlin wrings her hands - it's a nervous habit of hers. "You ever heard of the web-slinging vigilante of New York?"

"New York? As in, Fake Gotham New York?" I crack a smile at the thought - of the two enormous East Coast cities laying claim to being called "Gotham," New York is at the distinct disadvantage of having not been built and/or named first.

"They call him 'Spider-Man,'" says Cisco, "and for whatever reason, he was in town today, so he went and helped you out."

"How?"

"He caught you before you hit the ground," says Caitlin. "Thank God, too. That was...I don't think I could have handled that, seeing two people die in less than five minutes." She shudders, then pauses to think. "Wait a minute...Cisco, didn't you take a picture of the guy?"

"'Cause I knew you'd wanna see it," Cisco says to me, producing his phone from his pocket and showing me the picture in question. It's a bit hard to tell, but there does appear to be a red and blue human-shaped blur swinging over a street covered in broken glass.

"He looks like he's going towards CCU," Caitlin muses as she peers at the screen over Cisco's shoulder.

"Hmm," I say. "Is that significant?"

"Could be," she says, rubbing the bridge of her nose and the space between her eyebrows. "I heard that there was some group of visitors from New York this weekend."

"Visitors?" Cisco repeats. "You don't mean...?"

I frown deeply at the screen. "If what you're saying is true, are you trying to suggest Spider-Man's a kid? A high school kid?"

"We weren't the first insufferable genii to go through high school," Caitlin says - I wonder if she's deliberately going for the Latin plural to underline her point. "And we certainly wouldn't be the last."

Cisco crosses over to one of the Apple desktop screens and fires it up. Within seconds, he's able to start working some hacker magic. He's no Felicity Smoak, but he's the best we've got. I do have to give him his props - IT isn't my forte, not at all. I prefer real-world science to cyber-science - but don't tell Cisco that. And especially not Felicity.

"So, it looks like you were right," he says after glancing at an internet window. "There are a bunch of high school tour groups at CCU today - but only one from New York. Midtown Science High School."

"Are you seriously gonna-" I begin.

"Hey, relax," Cisco says, opening another window and typing in some code. "Without Spider-Man, your ass would be grass. You'd be squished all over the street outside right about now."

"Thanks for that lovely image," Caitlin groans.

Cisco ignores her disgust. "The least we can do is show him our gratitude."

"True, but..." I'm torn about this. Like me, Spider-Man wears a mask in public. If we were to breach his privacy like that, even if it was being done for good instead of evil, would he still appreciate any gesture on our part?

And when Cisco does inevitably get his hands on the list of visiting students from Midtown Science, who's to say which of them is Spider-Man, anyway? Even after eliminating all the girls, there are twenty or more boys to choose from.

"Okay," Cisco says, sitting back with his hands folded behind his head, like a Latino version of Sora from _Kingdom Hearts._ "Place your bets."

Caitlin and I exchange glances, then turn to look at the screen properly. This list of names doesn't yield much - only a small color photo of each boy, presumably from his school ID; a column of boxes marked "M," likely for "male;" and their names, laid out in alphabetical order of last name, comma, first initial. For example - "Grayson, R." Or "Parker, P." Or "Thompson, E."

"Where do you think we should start?" Caitlin asks me.

I step aside with a theatrical flourish. "I defer to you on this one."

"Come on, let's think about narrowing it down further," Cisco says. "Spider-Man's built kinda like you, Barry - tall, thin. Not as tall as you, but still." He scans several photos, one after the other, then eliminates a few who look like they'd be too athletic or overweight. "Thompson, E." is one of these lost candidates.

Now we're down to eight possibilities. But with no further details about them, it's harder for Cisco to cut any more out of the running. "Let me see if I can get into, like, their records out east," he says, cracking his knuckles. "Man, the one time a superhero shows up and it's not the Arrow...where's Felicity when you-" Before he can finish his sentence, though, he stops short, looking up like a dog that's been spooked.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I dunno," he says, looking around from side to side. "I just thought I heard something."

"Actually, you're right."

We all turn around - and I can't speak for Caitlin or Cisco, but I can safely say that there's now a leaden pit in my stomach. "This...this isn't possible," I say to the intruder, a bald man in a blue coat and tinted square goggles. "You're locked up downstairs, i-in the accelerator..."

"Why would I be down there when I can be up here to take you little whiz-kids out?" says Leonard Snart as he fires up his signature frigid weapon. "But first, I'd like you to riddle me this...where's that wheelchair-bound boss of yours?"


	4. Whispered In My Ear

_**CHAPTER 4: WHISPERED IN MY EAR**_

 *****BARRY*****

"You, uh..." I swallow my nerves and try to project some extra bravado into my voice. "Talk like you've got a pair," as Joe might say. "Funny you should ask about Wells - you just missed him."

"Bullshit," Snart scoffs.

"I'm not kidding," I say. "Did you see that black hole just now? Swallowed him whole like the shark from _Jaws._ "

Speaking of sharks, Snart draws his lips back from his teeth in a freakish grin. The dark goggles really don't help. "I think I've had enough of your dumbass stories, Flash." He raises the cold gun, forcing Caitlin and Cisco to jump out of the way. I, on the other hand, run to the edge of the room, then back to the center where Snart is standing. I'm surprised by how easily he goes down - he's not as tall as I am, but he makes up for that with gym-sculpted muscle. There's no way he should-

"Oh, shit!" I see him draw a second, smaller weapon - a Sig Sauer-type pistol - from the inside pocket of his jacket. At the very last second, I dodge to one side - but I can still sense a blast of cold trying to catch my heels. "Not again," I mutter to myself - I have zero desire to repeat the experience of absolute zero negating my powers.

Then it really dawns on me - that's a second cold gun. But how? Cisco only ever built the one, and Snart has it with him already. Right?

There are so many impossibilities here, it's not even funny.

I catch Cisco's eye, and Caitlin's - they're crouched behind one of the tables. It's not going to protect them for long, though, so I silently gesture to them to GTFO, as the kids on the internet would say these days.

As they skulk out of the room as invisibly as possible, I round on Snart and say, "That's a fine-looking peashooter you got there. Shame if something happened to it."

"You like it?" Snart says, raising the pistol. Instead of firing, though, he goes on to say, "They figured it would be best to kill Wells with something he designed."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah. Why do you think I took it to Oscorp? Their team sucks at developing their own original projects - they're all faulty as hell. But when it comes to reverse-engineering the competition..." Snart finally fires, this time freezing the table where I'd been laid to rest, such as it were. "They're number one, son."

"Sure. Sure. You keep telling yourself that." Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caitlin coming back into the room. I'd tell her to leave, but I don't want to alert Snart to her presence. There' also the fact that she herself is holding a fearsome weapon. Not just any weapon, either - it's the opposite of Snart's cold gun. The heat gun.

Caitlin fires the heat gun, narrowly missing Snart. Instead, she blasts and warps the floor just behind his feet. He jumps to avoid it, but his boots are singed anyway, so he lands with the soles of his feet sizzling slightly.

Who knew that would piss him off enough to make him want to freeze her?

"Come on!" Caitlin yells as Snart levels his cold pistol once again. She does the same with the heat gun, ready to fire - and clearly hoping to not miss this time.

Before they can shoot, however, I run circles around Snart. Literally. Not only does it disorient him, but I also take advantage of that to grab his cold pistol and turn it against him instead.

"There's a time and a place to suddenly turn into the bravest shit-for-brains on this planet," I say to Caitlin over Snart's head as he whirls around, looking from her to me and back again. "Maybe this was that time, but I'm not gonna let you make me useless because of it."

Caitlin gives me a sweet smile completely at odds with the heat gun still in her hands. "And I thought you only had eyes for Iris," she says.

I return her smile, but it's more embarrassed than sweet. Then that smile slowly vanishes as Caitlin and I close in on Snart. "Now," I say to him, "what are we gonna do with you? You're already downstairs - we don't need two of you in the basement."

"Sounds like you got your hands full, then," Snart says. His eyes dart over to the full-sized cold gun. He makes a move, but then I pull down the pistol's hammer, the click echoing throughout the room.

"Don't even think about it," I say. I keep the armed pistol trained on his chest until he takes a step back, away from the cold gun. This is weird on so many levels - I've never been good with guns, ever. Joe had Iris and me visit a shooting range once when we (that is, she and I) were kids - they both kicked my asses a hundred times over and then some.

"Hey! Who are you?" Cisco's voice rings out from outside the door - he and Caitlin must have taken refuge in the hallway. The door is flung open, and another guy, one I've never seen before, races in and grabs the cold gun.

"Hmm," the guy says, examining the gun closely. "What does this do, I wonder?"

"I wouldn't hold it so close to your face if I were you," I say.

"I'd listen to the speedster," Snart says, crossing his arms. "That thing's a prototype, pretty much. It's full of bugs."

"I used to like bugs when I was a kid," the guy says. He pulls off his previously low-slung hood, revealing a small mask over his eyes. They're gray, like mine. Other than that, though, that's where the resemblance between us ends. He's built more like Snart - average height, well-muscled - and he's much less baby-faced than I am. I bet he doesn't get carded if he goes out to the bar the way I've been repeatedly, despite being of legal drinking age for almost four years.

"Not these kind of bugs, I'm guessing," Caitlin says.

"Oh no, definitely not," says the guy as he continues to look at the gun. He turns it over this way and that, curious about how it works. "I'm talking the creepy, crawly kind that used to be all in my life until I was adopted."

"If you're gonna shoot me, someone friggin' get on with it," Snart says with an irritated snort. "I'm sick of playing this waiting game."

"I'm not gonna shoot you, though," says the guy. He puts the gun down. "Why would I do that? Life is precious, you know. Unless it's those maggots they have in Sardinian cheese. I almost puked my guts out when I first heard about that. So disgusting."

"Enough of this," growls Snart. "What say you guys all put the weapons down, and I'll face off against you one by one, hand-to-hand? New guy first."

"You're gonna regret that," says New Guy. "Seriously, you will. Just walk away now, and nobody gets hurt."

"I have no regrets," Snart says, snickering as he shrugs off his jacket. "Never have, never will."

"That's no way to live," says New Guy, who takes off his own hoodie. Underneath, he's wearing a white T-shirt with a silhouette of a bird in flight emblazoned across the chest. "Do you have any feelings at all? No one you care about? Never been in love?"

Snart doesn't answer. Instead, he tries to punch New Guy in the jaw. I want to step in, but he's able to block Snart's punch pretty easily with an upraised arm and fist. He looks like he can handle himself. But if things really start to go south, I'll definitely be forced to intervene.

New Guy crouches slightly in a boxer-type stance, both fists raised. "I'll take that as a no to all of the above." He jabs at Snart's abdomen, but misses, and ends up hit in the face. Caitlin, Cisco, and I all wince as his nose starts to bleed. I didn't hear it break, though, so it's probably not as bad as it looks. Definitely not, given his ability to continue bantering and monologuing at Snart.

"Seriously, though...no love? Haven't you met someone who makes you feel like you're the only guy in the world? That someone you feel you do everything for?" Now he makes another move, this time with his feet, successfully kicking Snart in the chest and sending him staggering backwards about a foot and a half. "I know I have that someone in my heart. I really picked the right time for a meet-cute with that girl in the library, didn't I?"

Snart finally snaps and demands to know what the hell New Guy's talking about. "Nothing important to you," he says. "After all, you don't understand emotions." He watches as Snart gets ready to land another punch, then strikes with a serious karate-chop to his arm, breaking it. Roaring in agony, Snart tries again with his other arm. But it's not his dominant arm, so he's not as used to fighting with it, and New Guy has no problem grabbing it and twisting it behind his back.

"You're done here," he whispers into Snart's ear.

"You know what?" Snart grunts. "You're right." He manages to untwist his way out of New Guy's grasp. Then, unexpectedly, he vanishes into thin air.

"Whoa, what the hell?" I say, looking around. I'm not the only one - New Guy's also looking around pretty wildly, not to mention resorting to heavier profanity.

"Well," New Guy says eventually. "That was a surprise. But I guess my work here is done." He picks up his hoodie, then looks at Snart's jacket, which he left behind. "I wonder what you guys would do with that, huh? Burn it, I suppose. Or give it to charity. Even at this time of year, there must be some homeless guy around here who needs something like that."

"Wait!" Cisco calls out before New Guy can head out the door. "You never answered my question - who are you? And how'd you get in here?"

"I'll answer the last question first," New Guy says, zipping up his hoodie and crossing his arms over the light blue chest chevron for a few seconds. "That other guy broke in, and I followed him. I figured he was, you know, up to no good." He turns and walks to the door, but then stops in the doorway and turns his head our way long enough to say, "And as for who I am...you can call me Nightwing."

With that, Nightwing pulls his hood up and leaves.

"Okay, am I the only one here with his mind blown?" Cisco asks. "I mean, now we have three superheroes in Central City? How cool is that?"


	5. You Never Know When It's Gonna Strike

_**CHAPTER 5: YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT'S GONNA STRIKE**_

 *****PETER*****

Gwen mostly just hangs around behind me when I visit the photography section at the College of Arts seminar. I told her repeatedly she didn't need to follow me there, especially since this isn't something she's really interested in. My favorite response of hers? "You lost all going-off-by-yourself privileges this morning, Petey."

There isn't much of a photography department at this school, though. No surprise there - I've found it to be one of the more overlooked art forms, which is pretty sucky for me because it's the only one I'm remotely proficient in. And besides, I'd be going here more for the science stuff than for the photography. Even though I think I could make it as a photographer - just look at Jeff from _Rear Window_ \- Aunt May and Uncle Ben always advised me to pursue science for two reasons. One, it's the other big interest I've got. And two, it's more likely to be a practical course of study.

My only worry is that one day, I'll spend so long in that field that it'll turn me mad. Like Dr. Curt Connors. God save him, but he was so horribly misguided and desperate, and I always felt bad for him. Even when I was taunting him, while he was in Lizard form, in the halls of Midtown Science. " _Aww, somebody's been a very bad lizard!_ "

The ensuing library fight - with the old-fogey librarian, Mr. Lee, completely oblivious to it all because he was listening to some classical suite or other as it played very loudly on his headphones - I think I had it coming. Not only for provoking the Lizard, but also for throwing Gwen out the window and webbing her up to break her fall. That move, which I came up with and executed in the span of maybe ten seconds at most, could have easily gone lethally wrong. And if that had happened, I don't know what I would have done.

There's only one other person who's got my level of interest in the CCU Photography Club. He's about my height, but he's got way more muscle than I do. He could almost be one of Flash Thompson's football teammates (and yes, Flash does play football in addition to basketball - more chances to sustain serious brain injury, but at least he has his way of keeping active pretty much year-round.) Almost - except I don't believe I've met him before. As one of the unofficial school paparazzi (Gwen calls me that, but if you so much as try to imitate her, I'll summon the cast of _American Horror Story: Coven_ to scoop your eyeballs out with melon ballers), I often find myself taking pictures of just about every team the school has, academic or athletic. (I always laugh when I remember the time Uncle Ben saw the picture of Gwen and the debate team I was touching up on my computer. If it had been a picture of, say, the swim team, he probably wouldn't have gone so out of his way to point out how pretty the most front-and-center person in the shot was.) This guy, I don't recognize from any of my sports pictures.

There's something else about him that's a little off. It takes me a few seconds to figure it out, and then I kindly point it out to him. "Uh, dude? Your name tag is upside down."

"Huh?" The guy looks down at his chest, then laughs out loud. "Oh crap, you're right!" He hastily unsticks the name tag and switches it to its proper position. Now I can actually read it - "Dick Grayson," it says.

"Nice to meet you, uh, Dick," I say. "Or do you prefer 'Richard' or something?"

"Grayson works just fine," he says, shaking hands with me. "I kinda started rolling with the 'Dick' thing before I knew what it _really_ meant." He reads my name tag, and adds, "I guess I can say the same about you, huh, Peter?"

"What do you mean?"

Grayson snickers to himself. "It's, uh...well, I saw an Honest Trailer once that was talking about how some character - also called Peter - was being cockblocked by his girlfriend's dad. The video said something about the dad making sure he 'stuck his peter anywhere but in his daughter.'"

I must look so disgusted right now. I can only imagine what Gwen must be thinking - she's a few yards away, pretending to be interested in the Sculpture Club or something like that. But if she were to turn and see me and Grayson talking... "Are you serious?" I ask him.

"Hey, don't blame me," he says, holding his hands up. "I didn't know 'peter' and 'dick' were synonyms before then."

"I almost wanna go look it up on Urban Dictionary or something right now."

"You look on Urban Dictionary?" Grayson's practically guffawing at this point. His eyes also start shining to match his mischievous, dimpled smile. That face should not be allowed in a room with ladies present - they'd all be killed by it. In a good way, of course.

"Sometimes," I say. "When I really need a laugh."

"Not that you need one now, of course."

Good point there. I don't think I've ever found myself connecting so well, so fast, with any other human being. Maybe it's just the way that this guy can bring out a dirty side I never really knew I had.

Gwen finally gives up on the sculpture people at this point - I guess you can only stare at rusty-looking abstract whirly-birds for so long - and waves hi to me. "Who's this guy?" she asks, her eyes darting in Grayson's direction. I introduce the two of them, and while Gwen makes to shake Grayson's hand, he instead wraps her in a bear hug. She takes it in stride, though, and smiles hugely while hugging him back.

"Sorry about that," he says, his lady-killing grin changing from mischievous to embarrassed. "I always get really affectionate with girls, for some reason."

"Gwen's a total sweetheart, so she deserves it," I say, earning myself a punch in the shoulder from her.

"You know," she says, scratching her chin with her thumb as we make our way out of the hall and onto the lawn, "I don't think I've seen you at school before. Are you new?"

"You can say that, yeah," Grayson says, rubbing the back of his neck. I know that gesture - I've been known to do it myself when talking to Gwen. I've never had reason to be a jealous type, so my first thought about that is instead about how it must be contagious or something. "I'm not, like, a brand-new transfer student or anything," he adds, "but I've just not been at your school long enough to get noticed. For good or bad."

Across the lawn, there's a DJ who's been playing non-stop hip-hop for the last few hours. But it seems that non-stop may have just run out, because the next song that plays for everyone is an old favorite of mine and Gwen's - "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles. Even though it's actually the opposite of what its title suggests, that didn't stop us from using it to practice dancing to before junior prom a couple of weeks ago. Right now, it's what Gwen is jokingly calling "our song."

And apparently, Grayson enjoys it too, because as soon as it starts, he spontaneously unzips his hoodie, tosses it into Gwen's arms, and break-dances his way up and down the lawn. The whole time, he's grinning like an idiot, clearly enjoying himself. I've never wanted to do any kind of performing arts myself - unless I'm in costume, of course, so nobody can see me. Mad props to Grayson, then.

Three-and-some-odd minutes later, the song ends, and Grayson takes center stage in the circle of viewers - myself and Gwen included - that's gathered around him. He takes a theatrical bow, then heads back to us. "Whew," he says, wiping a bit of sweat from his forehead. "I need to cool down. Where's that big blond dude with the ice cream?"

"Over there somewhere," I say, gesturing to the still-operational row of food tables. "Unless that freaky black hole somehow sucked him up, huh?" I nudge Grayson's ribs while we both laugh. Gwen's laugh, however, is a little loud and false, even more so than her usual fake-annoying laugh. (Actually, her real laugh is annoying too, but I don't tell her that because I want her to think I find it endearing - which, to some extent, I do.)

"Yeah, that," Grayson says. He looks over at the skyline of Central City in the distance. "My God, though, all those people who probably got sucked up for real..."

"I'm sure there weren't that many of them," I say. "I mean, it's the weekend. Who goes into the office on the weekend?"

Grayson nods. "That's true. But someone has to, you know? Go into the office, I mean. Otherwise, the whole business world could go to Hell in a handbasket."

Gwen purses her lips. "Don't tell me that's where the black hole took them."

"No way," I say. "Me, I don't think there's an express elevator to Hell like that. Unless whoever got sucked up by the black hole was one of those Ponzi-scheme-type CEOs."

"They'd deserve an express elevator," Grayson muses, "but then who decides how their victims get compensated? The lawyers?"

Gwen snickers darkly. "They'd probably get greedy."

"Okay," I say, rolling my eyes. "No more _How To Get Away With Murder_ for you. That show gives lawyers a bad name."

"What can I say? I love me a little soap-opera trash sometimes." Gwen wraps one arm around me from the front, so her hand is half on my shoulder, and half on my chest. "And besides, when your dad's a cop, you don't often hear too many good things about lawyers."

We break off our conversation while Grayson gets himself a cone from the blond guy. Then, after he's had his first lick of the strawberry ice cream, he says, "So your dad's a cop?"

"Was," she says. "He died in action not so long ago."

"Oh really?" Grayson asks. "Wow. I-I'm so sorry." He looks away from Gwen for a moment, concentrating on his ice cream - it's starting to melt pretty quickly now that the sun's out in full force. "I think I heard something about a high-profile cop dying a few months back, too. Isn't it true that he was helping Spider-Man when he died?"

Gwen and I exchange glances. "Uh...I think that was just a rumor," Gwen says - it's her standard deflection anytime someone brings up Spider-Man in connection with her dad.

"Nonsense," Grayson says. "You were there with him, weren't you, Peter?"

My jaw drops - but it's hard to say which of us, me or Grayson, looks more shocked by what he's just said. He nearly drops his ice cream and whispers to himself, "Oh shit. I wasn't supposed to say that..."

"How do you know who I am?" I ask, my tone turning icy.

Grayson clears his throat. "It's, um...it's a long story."

"Try us," Gwen says. "We got plenty of time."

Grayson walks over to a nearby picnic table and takes a seat, with me and Gwen sitting across from him. "You're right about one thing," he says, talking more to his ice cream than to us. "I'm really new at your school. 'Cause I just transferred in from Gotham City last week." He absentmindedly wipes some dripping pink ice cream from the edge of his cone, then adds, "And I'm also a little too old for high school, if you can believe that. I was sent in to keep tabs on you guys. See, my boss..." He licks his lips nervously. "Well, he's not really my 'boss' - I just call him that. He's actually my dad. My adoptive dad. And...and he wanted me to keep an eye on Spider-Man, 'cause he wasn't sure if you posed a threat."

"Peter, a threat?" Gwen scoffs.

"Who's your dad?" I ask. "Don't tell me - is he a spy for the CIA or something?"

"More of a free agent," Grayson says. "You might know him as billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne...but as long as we're all airing our dirty laundry, he's the secret identity of Gotham's most famous superhero vigilante."

"Nightwing?" I ask. "I've heard of him. He's awesome. Wait...your dad is...?"

Grayson laughs, shaking his head. "No, no, no, you must've gotten mixed up. _I'm_ Nightwing, actually. And my boss - he's Batman."

This, of course, is the cue for me and Gwen to shout over each other, "Shut the front door!"


	6. Shout It Out

_**CHAPTER 6: SHOUT IT OUT**_

 *****PETER*****

"Can't shut the front door," Grayson chuckles. "The horse has kinda bolted already."

Mixed metaphors aside, I can't help but laugh along with him. "My God. You're...y-you're the son of Batman?"

"Adopted," Grayson says.

"Why do you keep saying that?" Gwen asks. "You're making it sound like you're trying to distance yourself from him."

More ice cream melts out of Grayson's cone, and he's actually forced to lick his hand this time before the pink stuff drips onto the sleeve of his hoodie. He then blushes deeply and wipes his hand, as well as the edge of the cone, before continuing. "I'm not," he says, staring deep into the heart of the cone. "I just...I fell into the habit a long time ago. I mean, if you guys knew anything about Bruce Wayne, you'd understand."

"You said it yourself - he's a billionaire playboy," I remind him. "That's about all anyone knows, really."

"True." Grayson starts biting off parts of his cone so he can get at the ice cream pooled deep inside it. "So people might think he had some illegitimate kid or two - and that's why I always say I'm adopted."

Over our heads, someone shouts Grayson's name. I look up and see a lovely brunette waving at him from the edge of a railing on a nearby staircase. "I thought you didn't know anyone here," I say.

"I didn't say that." Grayson waves back at the girl, beckoning her over to our table. "I brought a friend with me, though." She comes down the stairs to our table and kisses him hello. "Peter, Gwen," he says with a goofy grin, "say hello to Olivia Miralo."

" _Mucho gusto,_ " she says, coming around the table and laying hugs on Gwen, then me. "Oh, and perfect timing - you're almost done!"

"I figured you'd come along before I could finish this," Grayson laughs, handing the cone to Olivia. She then bites off the bottom of the cone and starts sucking the pool of ice cream right out the bottom of it. "That's her thing," he explains to me and Gwen as Olivia enjoys her unusual way of eating the snack. "She prefers the cone to the actual ice cream, so that's how we share it."

"Mmm." Olivia smacks her lips, then says, "Try doing this with a Drumstick sometime, guys."

The cone gets dissected further for a moment, then Grayson says, "You remember my new assignment from Bruce, right?"

"Oh yeah," Olivia says, reducing the ice cream cone (or, more accurately, ice cream frustum) to half its original length. "Track Spider-Man, get to know him...wait a minute. No way! This Peter dude is Spider-Man?"

The smile on Grayson's face could light up all of New York for a month. "See, there's a reason why we went back to school, and these two are it."

Olivia's eyes boggle first at me, then at Gwen. "You've got powers too?" she asks her.

"Does brainpower count?" Gwen asks.

"Of course it does!" says Olivia as she matches Grayson's smile with one of her own. "I definitely count it for myself. Well, I should - I work in a library."

"Public or university?" Gwen asks.

"Public," says Olivia. "And that's where I met this lovely boy. But at the time, he was a bit of a lonely boy."

It doesn't take a psychic to predict Gwen's response. "Funny. I could describe Peter practically the same way."

The girls laugh together, and Grayson and I are quick to follow suit. "Careful now," I say, wagging my finger at the others. "Let's not start getting jealous of each other's amazing partners."

"Or begging to take the other guy's girlfriend home with him," Grayson chuckles. "Speaking of which..." He pulls out his wallet and counts up the money within. "Would forty bucks be enough to buy Gwen's company for the rest of the night?"

Appalled, Gwen glares at Grayson. Then she turns on Olivia and sees her pulling out her own money.

"I'll match that amount for your boyfriend," she says earnestly.

I can't believe this. Gwen and I have been in Central City for less than forty-eight hours and another couple's already pretending to buy us for a boyfriend-swap? Normally, that doesn't happen for at least seventy-two.

Finally, Grayson gives up the charade and says, "Yeah, if you two are anything like us - and I bet you are - your relationship is sacred to you."

With a solemn nod, Olivia concurs. "And far be it from us to interfere with what's sacred to others," she says, again in that phony earnest tone. She then ruins that tone by chomping on the last part of the ice cream cone, biting it clumsily in half. The other half, she gives to Grayson, and he eats it in one bite.

"Thanks," he says, wiping his mouth. He then walks over to a nearby trash can and uses the napkin to blow his nose. Before he can throw it away, though, I focus on the napkin for a split second and catch a small red fleck on it. Not pink like the ice cream, but red. It's probably blood - but from where?

I don't get much time to dwell on it, though, because before long, it's time for us to take the bus back to our hotel. During the trip down the hill and closer to the center of town, we talk more about a pretty wide variety of subjects. Ice cream (Olivia swears by this one place in Gotham called North Poles Apart, and urges Gwen and me to try it out should we ever visit), the most popular books at the Gotham and Midtown Science libraries (Olivia's disappointed when she learns that _Twilight_ is still in our school's top five, and Gwen, a longtime fan, jokes that she's always checking the books out herself just to make sure it stays that way), etc.

Not once, though, does the topic of our superhero selves crop up. Grayson and I seem to be in an unspoken agreement not to talk about it in public. Even though, logically, it would be harder for people to overhear us in a crowded environment like the interior of this bus...but it's better not to take any chances. We took enough chances, I think, when we were talking about Nightwing and Batman at that picnic table.

However, I still resolve to talk to Grayson more about our secret identities when we get a chance to be alone. Which should be easy - by a strange coincidence, his room happens to be right next to mine.

Before we can go into the hotel, though, we're forced to wait in the lobby. Because of the whole black-hole incident, the hotel is being flooded with evacuees who haven't been allowed to return to their homes yet, and are being put up in any spare rooms the hotel has to offer. These evacuees are lining up in front of the elevators and stairs, effectively blocking them off with these massive, almost Disneyland-sized queues.

Grayson collapses onto a red sofa and takes off his hoodie again. "Are you sure it's a good idea to wear a Nightwing shirt?" I ask, nodding at the prominent logo splashed across his chest.

"Nobody's gonna recognize me in this, trust me."

"What about that guy?" Gwen asks.

I turn around and follow her gaze. She's looking at a tall guy on the other side of the room. So tall, in fact, he dwarfs the two people standing behind him. All three of them are looking at us pretty intently, setting my internal alarms off.

The alarms shut off, however, when I recognize the other two. They're the Flash's friends, the Latino nerd and the brunette girl. And then I recognize the Flash himself, boyish face and all. Why did I not realize how tall he was before? It's actually a little intimidating.

Grayson seems to recognize them too. He automatically crosses his arms and covers his chest, but only for a second. "Yeah," he mutters. "The jig's up." In a louder voice, he says, "Fancy meeting you here, guys."

"You wouldn't believe how hard it was to track you down, Grayson," says the Latino - it takes me a second to remember that his name is Cisco. And the brunette is Caitlin. But as for the Flash, I still don't know his real name.

The Flash delivers an awkward wave and says, "Hello again, Nightwing. And hello, Nightwing's entourage."

"What, you guys don't recognize me?" I laugh. "Must be hard without the mask."

Cisco barely stifles his laughter as he recognizes my voice. "Great, now we don't have to try and figure out who you are. Thanks for taking the challenge away from us, dude!"

"You're welcome," I say, raising my hand in an "I'd like to thank the Academy" gesture. "But what's got you guys looking for me? Seriously, does nobody trust me around here? I'm not a bad guy!"

"He really isn't," Gwen says. "But if you kill someone he loves, he'll go vigilante until justice is served on your ass."

"I don't do that anymore," I whisper, nudging her lightly.

"Any badass points you can get, use 'em."

The Flash laughs under his breath. "Well, I kinda needed to thank you for saving my life, Spider-Man. Or would you be okay telling me your real name?"

Why not? We masked superheroes have to stick together. "I'm Peter Parker," I say, standing up. "And you are?"

"Barry Allen." We shake hands. "And yeah, thanks for saving me. I didn't really wanna end this day as a smear on the pavement."

"Who does?" I ask.


	7. No Fear, Cavalier

**_CHAPTER 7: NO FEAR, CAVALIER_**

 *****BARRY*****

It's a nerd's dream come true - three superheroes in the same room together. How long until three (or more) villains come along for us to all take on and save the day? Stay tuned. Until then, for those of you playing at home, here's the continuation of my first real meeting with the boys behind the masks of Spider-Man and Nightwing.

"Is now a bad time to mention that I hacked into you guys' records?" Cisco says, barely managing to contain his own excitement.

"Is there ever a good time to mention that?" asks Nightwing - or, as Cisco's search through private files from across the country has told us, Dick Grayson.

A blonde girl, undoubtedly Peter's girlfriend (she's holding his hand), shakes her head. "I don't think so," she says, raising her eyebrows until they disappear into her bangs. "'Cause nobody wants to know their records are being looked at by unauthorized personnel. And I should warn you guys, I'm the daughter of a cop, so..." She lets her words hang over our heads, making them sound very genuine - but somehow, I sense she's bluffing. Maybe not about the "daughter of a cop" thing - I've known Iris long enough to pick up on the signs - but about the unspoken threat to have me and my friends brought to justice for our search of highly questionable legality.

"Note to self," Cisco says. "Make sure to wipe all traces of today's hacking."

"As if you don't already do that," Caitlin snickers. "You're too careful."

"If I had my literal white hat," Cisco says, ruffling his own overgrown hair, "I'd put it on right now. I just hope you guys would all get the joke."

A chorus of "Uh, yeah" and/or other similar phrases rises from Peter, his girlfriend, and Grayson. Grayson's girlfriend, however, puts on a high-pitched, ditzy-sounding voice and says, "I don't get it! Someone tell me what it means? Please? Pretty please?"

"You know," says Peter's girlfriend with a half-scowling smile, "if you have to have the joke explained to you, it loses its funny."

Cisco, Caitlin, and I sit next to everyone else. More introductions are passed around, and I finally get the names of the guys' girlfriends - Peter's girlfriend is Gwen Stacy, and Grayson's is Olivia Miralo. "Yeah, I know," she says as Cisco opens his mouth. "My name means 'look at it.' I've heard it a million times already, _chico._ "

I have no idea what embarrasses Cisco more - being stopped before he can provide a translation of Olivia's name for the uncivilized, non-Spanish-speaking masses (of which I'm a member, having chosen to take French in school despite Spanish being more useful where I live, like Debra Morgan), or being called _chico_ to his face by a stunning young woman light-years out of his league. Parsecs, even. No offense to Cisco, of course, but he's got a ways to go before he's well and truly ready to get his first girlfriend - he freely admits it.

"So, what brings you guys out west?" I ask. "I mean, New York and Gotham we ain't."

"You say 'out west?'" Grayson asks, looking a tad bit perplexed. "I thought people around here would say 'out east' and 'back west,' not the other way around."

"'Back west' doesn't really roll off the tongue so well, does it?" Caitlin says. "But I usually say 'out east' myself."

"It's all relative," I say. "And for you guys, this would be 'out west,' right?"

" _Very_ out west," Peter says. He grins nervously, then adds, "This is literally the furthest from home I've ever been." He looks over to the long line in front of the elevator - evacuees from downtown still waiting to get a room in this hotel. If I hadn't moved back in with Joe a few months ago, I probably would be among them, since my old place is in the newly-defined exclusion zone around STAR Labs. We were actually forced to leave the place not long after Grayson left - that was when the National Guard came in and hustled us out of the building like it was on fire. Luckily, Cisco was able to snag a tablet and keep his hack-search going.

"Yeah," I say, turning back to Peter. "You really picked a hell of a time to visit."

"It's not like I haven't seen worse," Peter says. "There was 9/11, even though I barely remember that - I was just four years old." This tallies with what Cisco found in his records, which state that he was born in August 1997. Most people would probably see him unmasked and find it hard to believe he's only a few months shy of seventeen, but I know better. Given the chance, I probably would have become a Kick-Ass-type amateur superhero at that age. But unlike Dave Lizewski, I had another major interest to keep me going in life - science. Don't get me wrong, Lizewski's very much root-for-able, if that's even a word (I doubt it). But I can't imagine being so bored that I would routinely jack off to anything and everything from visions of my English teacher (and I never had any who were remotely wank-worthy) to pictures of bare-breasted women from Africa. Shares in Kleenex wouldn't have been waiting for my hormones to balance out before taking a dive.

"And the Battle of New York, don't forget that," Gwen says.

"How could I?" Peter's face clouds over slightly. "Our school put on a really good fundraiser, though. I took so many pictures that day, and I didn't wanna have to delete any of them...but only so many could go into the yearbook."

"And most of them had my face in them," Gwen teases him.

"I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times," Peter laughs, his face starting to brighten up again. "It's 'cause you've got such a pretty face. Prettiest in town, in fact."

"Depends on which town, though," Olivia says.

"Yeah," Grayson pipes up. "Around here, you've got the prettiest face, Flash."

I practically die laughing. "Aww, thanks," I say when I finally catch my breath. " _Vous me flattez, monsieur,_ " I add, grateful for a chance to finally tap into my high-school French.

" _Merci beaucoup,_ " Grayson says with a polite inclination of his head, barely masking his own stupid, highly flattered grin. " _Et si on se tutoyait?_ "

" _Ça me plairait aussi._ " Maybe it's because I haven't spoken the language in a while - other than occasionally mouthing along with French subtitles while watching _Harry Potter_ movies, something I used to do for fun all the time before becoming the Flash - but now that I'm using it again, I sound so formal. Especially if one were to translate my words literally back to English.

"Any of you guys speak French too?" Grayson asks the others. "Sorry if we're losing you here."

"I do," Gwen says. Peter nods along with her. Cisco, Caitlin, and Olivia, however, all shake their heads.

"All right," I say, taking note of the fact that not quite half the people in our group _parlent la langue d'amour._ "English it is."

"It almost feels like that first scene of _Inglourious Basterds,_ " Peter says. "You know, the one where Landa starts out speaking French, then says he's reached the limit of his French and switches to English?"

"Why do you love Tarantino so much?" Gwen asks.

"Yeah," Caitlin says, eyes widening slightly. "Isn't that guy supposed to be a pretentious assbag?"

"Doesn't mean he can't make a good movie," Peter says with a defiant smirk. "Same with Dan Harmon making a good little show called _Community_ \- Harmon's a bit of a snot-nosed prick, but he gets me in stitches almost every time."

This guy is really growing on me. He reminds me of myself in so many ways, especially because, like me, he looks like a recovering socially-awkward nerd - recovering from social awkwardness, that is. As for the nerd, you can try and take the kid from the science, but you can't take the science from the kid. Or something like that. I think that's supposed to be some kind of sports metaphor - wrestling or boxing, maybe - so that's probably why I don't quite get it. I was never really interested in sports, even though my dad and Joe both encouraged me to at least try out for baseball or something in high school. The basketball coach even tried to actively recruit me come senior year, by which time I'd hit six feet and was towering over all but the biggest jocks. But as Joe said later, "If I know you, had you gotten on the baseball team, you'd be sneaking your chemistry book into the dugout so you could study."

My response: "Didn't Iris do that once?" Iris played softball our sophomore year, and then in our junior year, she decided the game was...too soft. So she fought long and hard to earn a place on the baseball team with the boys, and she reached her goal. And yes, I do remember once coming to pick Iris up after practice, and I saw her reading her anatomy textbook (she'd gone an easier route than my choice of AP Chem, being less scientifically inclined) in the dugout until she saw me and hastily stuffed it into her gym bag.

With that memory having been brought up, Iris did the only thing a tough-cookie adopted sister would do in those circumstances - slug me in the shoulder.

Before I can do much more than laugh along with Peter's comment about _Community,_ though, Grayson spots someone else coming into the building. "He sure looks frazzled, doesn't he?" he asks, pointing somewhere over my shoulder.

I turn around, and at the sight of the guy Grayson's pointing out, my heart drops through the floor. "How is he here?" I whisper to myself. I even blink rapidly to try and clear whatever hallucination this is out of my vision.

It's no hallucination, though. Because how else would Grayson also be able to see a disheveled, freaked-out-of-his-mind Dr. Wells on the approach?

Wells comes up to me and gets to his knees behind the couch, looking dazed. "Barry. Thank God."

"Before you go any further," I say, turning around to get a better look at him, "please tell me you're actually Dr. Wells and not-"

"I am not now, nor have I ever been, anyone but myself," Wells says.

"Well, sorry if we don't exactly believe you," I say. "Especially after you spent months deceiving us all."

"I got here through a wormhole," Wells says. "I was...I was being attacked by a man who claimed he was from the future. Called himself-"

"Eobard Thawne?" Cisco asks, his tone none too kind. Eobard _did_ kill him in another timeline, though - one which I thankfully (but accidentally) erased.

"That's the guy," Wells says. He gets to his feet - it's still very strange to see him able to walk - then comes around and sits on the couch next to me. "He would've done it too, if not for the wormhole swallowing me up when it did."

"But Eobard's dead," Caitlin says.

"Who or what is Eobard?" asks Grayson. I don't even have to turn around to picture the perplexed look on his face. I'm sure Olivia, Peter, and Gwen have matching expressions too.

Cisco and Caitlin proceed to explain the whole Eobard/Wells thing to the uninitiated ones, while I concentrate on Wells. "Eobard is dead. Eddie killed himself, and with him dead, Eobard couldn't exist, 'cause he was Eddie's descendant."

"A paradox," Wells breathes. "But explain to me why he was still there to attack me. Or how I ended up here with only one thought in my mind - 'find Barry Allen.'"

"Who knows?" I knead my forehead. "God, who knows how badly messed up the space-time continuum must be. Wait - was that really your only thought? You didn't even know me when Eobard..." I barely manage to stop myself from finishing that sentence. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I sense that if Wells were to find out he was supposed to have died at Eobard's hands and been impersonated by him later, he would vanish into thin air the way the other Captain Cold did. I'm reasonably convinced at this point that that version of Leonard Snart we encountered today isn't the same one I've dealt with before - because if Wells' story about the wormhole is true, then perhaps that other Snart got brought here through a wormhole of his own, from an alternate universe.

"Well, not my _only_ thought," Wells amends. "I was trying to focus on keeping away from the gentleman following me here."

"What are you talking about?"

"The one with the burns all over his body," Wells says. "The one with the heat gun. I had a feeling I had something to do with that at some point - maybe an experiment gone awry?" He looks at me meaningfully. "Like you, but more evil. And less speedy."

My eyes move to the hotel's glass front door. As if I wasn't horror-struck enough, now it's even worse, because I can see Heat Wave himself, Mick Rory, storming the gates, having presumably been led here by Wells.

Without thinking, I jump over the couch and tear across the lobby, pushing Rory out the door before he can fire his weapon. A few seconds of super-fast running - in street clothes, at that - leaves us on the shoreline, the both of us trailing a small amount of smoke.

"How'd you get here?" I ask, needing an answer ASAP. "Tell me how you got here!"

Rory chuckles to himself. "Those were some pretty lights," he says. "Oh look, here they come again! I didn't kill you this time, but I'll show up again soon! You better watch your back, kid!"

"Wait!" I cry out, but it's too late. A silvery pinprick of light materializes over Rory's head, and less than a second later, he's vanished, just like Snart.

The only thing for me to do is race back to the hotel, where everyone instantly clamors to find out what just happened. All I can say, though, is this: "I wish I could tell you. But I still can't make sense of it myself."


	8. Joker On Jack, Match On A Fire

**_CHAPTER 8: JOKER ON JACK, MATCH ON A FIRE_**

 *****BARRY*****

I still can't make sense of what's going on, even after we finally get a room to ourselves to sit and chat. The room used to be Peter's, and only Peter's. But because of all the evacuees coming in, the third floor, which was previously set aside exclusively for the kids of Midtown Science High School, had to open up a few rooms. Therefore, everyone now has a roommate. It seems like pure chance that Peter and Grayson are sharing a room now, but whatever the circumstances, it's actually a good thing. Two superheroes are better than one, am I right or am I right?

Luckily, Wells (who, unlike the two villains we've met since I closed the black hole, has yet to disappear randomly) has an idea about what may be happening. Once we're inside the boys' room (why I think of it like that, I'm not sure, since one of them isn't even a boy), he leans against the door and says, "I think...when I was taken from my proper time and space, I was sent through a wormhole-"

"You already said that," Peter says.

Wells nods. "True. But since there are more people whom you seem to know randomly appearing and disappearing, there must be more wormholes surfacing in Central City as we speak."

Everyone around me looks shocked. I'm sure that, like with me, it's from picturing the possibility of more and more villains, arriving from an infinite myriad of quantum-multiverse dimensions. Well, obviously they wouldn't be all villains. After all, there's this pre-Eobard Thawne version of Wells, who's most definitely not a bad guy. I hope. There's still a nugget of doubt holed up in a dark corner in the back of my mind as far as Wells is concerned. Even if this is the real deal we're talking to, I'll never be able to trust him one hundred percent. But at this point, I think I can settle for seventy-five.

"All right," Cisco says, clapping his hands. "Who wants to invent something to look for wormholes in the city first?" He points his thumbs at himself, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess that the next two words out of his mouth are going to be "this" and "guy." Which, yes, they are, sadly.

"Hmm..." The droning sound drifts from Grayson's mouth for a while as he strokes the stubble above his lip. Other than my coma months, I haven't gone a day without shaving since I was Peter's age. I made the mistake of trying to grow a mustache for No-Shave November that year. To this day, Iris and Joe insist that I ruined that year's Christmas card with my ill-advised experiment, and I'm inclined to agree with them. Maybe I could grow a more impressive 'stache now, but I'm almost afraid to try. Even if it does work, I'd never hear the end of it from Cisco and Caitlin. The former, in particular, would draw on an endless pool of "Who are you and what the hell have you done with Barry Allen?" jokes. At least I'd probably learn how to say that in Spanish too, because if I know Cisco, he'll have no problem breaking out the bilingual-humor card in the event of his game needing to step up.

"You say something?" Gwen asks, turning to Grayson as he starts tapping one of his hands against the edge of his bed. It looks rather like he's drumming with that one hand.

Grayson starts, then shakes his head. "No, no, no...well, I, uh, did have an idea. But it's a dumb one, and you guys aren't gonna like it."

"Try us," Caitlin says.

"Yeah," I say. "Any idea is better than none at all."

"And there are no wrong answers?" Grayson asks. When nobody responds to his joke - I think it's a joke, anyway - he moves on and presents his idea. "Okay. So, as most of you guys know by now, I've been known to work with Batman in Gotham. I used to be his protégé, the one they called Robin. Now there's a new Robin, who's basically my adopted little brother-"

"The point, please?" Olivia says.

"Do you know what I'm gonna suggest?" Grayson asks.

"I can guess," Olivia says, smirking. "And if I'm right, you're also right, 'cause the others are so totally not gonna like it."

Grayson purses his lips. "Okay. So, you know how the NSA's supposed to wiretap and eavesdrop on all the phones in the world?" He holds out his phone after cycling through its menu a few times. "Well, there's someone spying, but it's not the NSA. It's someone a little less official, and his name is Bruce Wayne."

Olivia rolls her eyes. "I knew it."

"What are you-" Gwen begins.

Grayson has his thumb poised over the screen once again. "Quick, give me a name. Any name."

It's Caitlin who chooses a name - Harry Blair. Which makes sense, the Central City Rush quarterback being her sports crush. His resemblance to her husband Ronnie helps.

Mouthing the letters in Harry's name to himself, Grayson types it in on his phone, then turns it around so the rest of us can see the display. What we see is a trippy little vision - it looks like a black-and-white 3-D animation of a crowded street.

"What are we looking at, exactly?" asks Wells.

"This is where Harry Blair's cell phone is right now," Grayson says. "But...huh. That doesn't really look like Harry Blair, does it?"

He's right - the person holding the phone up at a funny angle, taking a selfie (I hear the clicking sound effect of the phone's camera), isn't Harry. The person's not even the same gender as Harry. What really disturbs me, though, is how familiar this young woman looks. I can't really place it, though. Not with everything and anything in the animated view pulsing slightly, like they're giving off radio waves. And then the image moves so it appears to be looking up at the sky while she presses some buttons, eventually sending a text.

Seconds later, my own phone unexpectedly chimes as I receive a text. I check the screen before unlocking it - the number's an unfamiliar one. Wait a minute... "What's Harry Blair's number again?" I ask Grayson.

He checks it in his system. "(530) 555-7315," he says. "Why?"

"'Cause that's the number that just texted me," I say, my stomach starting to churn. I open the text I just received, and sure enough, there's the selfie the girl just took. "Oh crap," I whisper, taking in the image. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

"Who is it?" asks Grayson.

"It's Lisa Snart," I say.

"Golden Glider?" Cisco's eyes go wide. "No way!"

"You're not helping us out here," Olivia says. "Details, please?"

I read the message accompanying the picture. " _I'm back, Speedy. Did you miss me? 3_ " Trying not to think about this psychotic show of affection, I explain to the others about Lisa being the sister of Captain Cold. It helps that Grayson met Snart already, so now he knows that the cray-cray runs in the family.

"It's a little out of character for her, though," Cisco says after I'm done talking. "I mean, the sneaky petty-theft thing. She and her brother usually go for bigger and better things."

Peter clears his throat. "Um, sorry to change the subject, but...how'd you do that, Grayson? How'd you get into this guy's phone?"

Grayson looks nervous at this point. "Uh...well, I'm not supposed to know about it myself. Hell, if Bruce knew I was telling you guys about this, he'd probably kick my-"

"I'm sure he already knows that I know, at least," Olivia says, crossing her arms.

"Right, right." Grayson shrugs, then gets back on topic. "Okay. So, this little beauty. It's a piece of tech created by Wayne Enterprises that allows surveillance through cell phones. It, uh, uses sonar to listen through the phone's mike, and creates a rough image of the area around it." He shows us the screen again - Lisa's still carrying Harry's phone around, and it seems she's visiting the edge of the exclusion zone downtown.

"She can't hear us, can she?" asks Gwen.

"One-way only," Grayson says.

Silence descends on the room as we process the implications of the invention as Grayson's described it. "Oh my God," Peter says finally. "Oh my God...you guys can actually use that to listen in on people?"

"If it fell into the wrong hands - like, again, the NSA - then yeah." Grayson laughs at his own joke, but then his expression sobers up. "But...Bruce only ever used it once, and then never again. He kinda had to, in order to stop a pretty major supervillain. 'Course," he says with a bitter laugh, "this was back in the Bush years, when it was actually considered okay to snoop on people. Patriot Act and all that. Bruce only used it for good, but he officially made sure the tech was shut down forever after he used it to stop the Joker."

"And unofficially?" I ask.

"Unofficially?" Grayson looks embarrassed. "I still use it. But only when I absolutely have to. Like when Olivia and I are apart, and I wanna make sure she's not cheating on me."

His voice is so deadpan, I assume he's kidding. Olivia, however, appears to take his words seriously, and slugs him in the arm in response. He pouts at her for a second, then flexes his arm and continues talking. "Okay, not really. But I only brought it up now 'cause I can actually see it being good for something for once."

"What, you mean to look for wormholes?" Peter asks.

As if on cue, the display on Grayson's phone changes. Lisa whispers "Yes!" in an excited voice and runs up to what appears to be a small spot of light. Then, the screen erupts in loud static.

"I think she just went through another wormhole," Grayson says.

"Yeah, thank you, Captain Obvious," Peter laughs. "Okay, so is this what you intend to use this baby for? Villain-finding?"

"Yeah." Grayson turns his phone off. "Yeah, it should work."

"But it's a little late to be scouring the city for wormholes at this hour," Wells says. "I suggest we all get a good night's sleep, and tomorrow, we can start our search afresh."

"That's gonna be a bit tricky for us," Grayson says, gesturing to himself, Peter, and Gwen. "We're all supposed to be at CCU tomorrow for the second day of our tour."

"Not that you really need a school tour, Officer," Olivia laughs, pinching Grayson's arm - in the very same spot where she punched him before. "Unless you plan to become a campus cop?"

"There are better reasons to transfer from New Jersey to California, my dear," Grayson laughs.

"I work better at night anyway," Peter says.

"As do I," Grayson says, "but maybe Wells is right. How long have we all been awake?"

"Crime never sleeps," I say, quoting something Joe always used to say whenever he had a late night on the job. "Anyone else willing to work the night shift?"

Everyone else raises their hands, including Wells - I guess he figures he'd rather not be the one to stand in the way of an otherwise unanimous vote.

"All right," I say, breaking out my own phone and calling up a map of Central City on Google. "If we're gonna do this right, you guys all gotta know where to go and what to do."


	9. She Seems To Have An Invisible Touch

**_CHAPTER 9: SHE SEEMS TO HAVE AN INVISIBLE TOUCH_**

 *****PETER*****

An hour after our hotel-room meeting, Cisco walks Gwen and me down to Shasta Shore Park on the southern side of town. It's only half a mile from the hotel, but the park itself covers a rough total of fifteen miles of shoreline. Actually, it's more like six miles as the crow flies, but Shasta Lake is so irregularly shaped, with narrow inlets aplenty, that the jogging paths through the park run a much greater distance.

Holding my cell phone out and taking a selfie (for real, the better to fool the small number of passersby), I look out over the lake, seeing the lights of Shasta Dam to the distant south. Beyond that are the cities of Shasta Lake and Redding, the largest suburbs of the Central City-Keystone metropolis.

I shiver under my hoodie as a brief but chilly wind blows onto the lake. Central City's relatively high altitude - a little over 1500 feet - means that even in spring, nighttime temperatures tend to approach freezing. The fact that the wind tends to always come down from the mountains doesn't help.

"Do we got anything?" I ask.

" _Nope,_ " Grayson says - he's got an open line on Cisco's phone. " _Nothing but pretty nighttime views of the lake. And of you and Gwen. You two should be out under the stars more often._ " He chuckles to himself, clearly enjoying the looks of consternation on not only my face, but Gwen's as well. " _Heck, now you've got me thinking - you two would make really good-looking kids. A boy with messy blond hair and brown eyes, or a brunette with Gwen's wonderful jade orbs-_ "

"I'm all for the compliments on our looks," Gwen interrupts, holding up her hand (I make sure my phone's mike is turned her way so Grayson can see her gesture), "but I gotta draw the line at using the word 'orbs.' You're not a stupid fanfic character. You're not being written by a lovestruck teenage girl. Trust me, I'm still haunted by my own use of 'orbs' in my _Twilight_ fanfic-writing days."

" _Oh, I know I'm not written by a lovestruck girl,_ " Grayson says brightly. " _If anything, whoever's writing me is probably more like me - a guy in his early twenties with something to prove._ "

" _What do you have to prove?_ " Barry asks. He's in another part of town - somewhere closer to the black hole exclusion zone, I think - with Caitlin and Wells, and he's linked to us via a conference call with Grayson and Olivia. " _You're a superhero, dude. That makes you awesome already, and you can take that to the bank._ "

" _I'm gonna quote a book I recommend to all the kids in Gotham,_ " says Olivia. "The Akhenaten Adventure. _Any of you know it?_ " Barry, Caitlin, and I all chime in that we do. " _Then you'll probably remember some of the first lines out of Rakshasas' mouth,_ " Olivia says. " _'May you get all your wishes except one, so you'll still have something to strive for.'_ "

" _And for me,_ " Grayson says, " _the one thing I still strive for is to prove that I am, in fact, capable of eradicating crime completely._ "

"That sounds a bit depressing, though," Cisco says. "Having your one unattainable wish be one that would make the world a better place."

" _Don't try and kill my joy, killjoy,_ " Grayson laughs. " _Okay, Peter, keep going._ "

"Where do I - ouch!" Even my Spider-sense doesn't help me when I accidentally bump into a girl. We fall backwards, away from each other, obeying Newton's Third Law. "I'm so sorry!" I say, holding out my hand so I can help her get up again.

"It's all right," she says, grasping my hand and rising to her feet. I notice that she's Asian, and bears a faint resemblance to Gwen's friend (and current hotel roommate) Sally Avril. I actually asked her (that is, Sally) on a date once, before I got to know Gwen, but she turned me down. Next thing I knew, she was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Flash Thompson. Currently on, according to Gwen.

"What are you guys doing?" asks this Asian girl. "Some kind of school project?"

"Something like that," Gwen says.

"We're hunting for wormholes," Cisco says with a grin. I hear Grayson and Olivia barely managing to stifle their laughter on the other end of the line. "Wanna come with?"

"Linda!"

She turns to see two other girls waving her over. "Maybe next time," she says, smiling softly. "Wait up!" she calls, running to catch up to her girlfriends.

After she departs, Barry says, " _Unless I miss my guess, you guys just met my ex._ "

"That's Linda Park?" Cisco cranes his neck and looks in her direction. "No way. And she's an 042na fan too?"

"Who or what is 'O Fortuna?'" I ask, looking in the same direction. There's a concert of some kind in progress underneath a nearby band shell. The band in question is a trio of musicians, each one playing a wildly different instrument - trombone for one, flute for the second, and in the middle, an electric violinist.

"You gotta say it with the numbers in the name," Cisco says. "'042na.' They're Central City's premier electro-classical band! Look, listen, see if you can recognize the song they're playing!"

Taking a listen, I spend a moment trying to identify the song before it finally kicks into my brain. Without the lyrics, it's hard to figure out, but then I finally superimpose the words in my head, as sung in the 80s by Curt Smith. "'Mad World,'" I whisper.

"Which kinda makes sense," Gwen says. "Look at the sign."

I do exactly that, and see a hastily-written message on a dry-erase sandwich board a few feet away. Under an arrow pointing in the direction of the band shell is the message "Downtown CC Benefit, Feat. 042na."

"This was planned before the whole black hole thing," Cisco informs us. "I was actually hoping to come here tonight, and I totally forgot about it after all that happened today."

"At least you get to see a little bit of the fun, huh?" Gwen says. "And it looks like a cool show, too."

" _Yeah, but as lovely as the music is,_ " Grayson says with a sigh, " _it's interfering with the view. Remember, it works by sound, so..._ "

"Right, right," I say, making my way past the concert. This is harder than it sounds, though, because the vast majority of the foot traffic in this part of the park is funneling its way in precisely that direction. Which means that as soon as we get past the entrance to the band shell, we end up having to battle our way through the crowd, almost literally.

" _Hang on..._ " Olivia's voice rings out from Cisco's phone this time, prompting a few weirded-out looks from the crush of hopeful concert-goers. " _Peter, turn your phone a couple degrees south again._ "

Mystified by this request, I look around. I'm new in town, so my internal compass is still in serious need of recalibration. But I'm pretty reasonably certain that, since I'm now following the side of one of the inlets, facing away from the lake, that looking south would mean looking where I've already been. "Are you sure you're having me look in the right place?" I ask. "'Cause I don't see anything that looks even remotely like a wormhole."

" _They're actually not as big and conspicuous as you might think,_ " Barry says.

" _He's right,_ " says Wells. " _The wormholes only appear as tiny pinpricks of light - at first, anyway._ "

"If they're really that small," Gwen asks, knitting her eyebrows, "then how come you didn't tell us that before?"

" _Because Grayson's phone-surveillance parlor trick works by sonar,_ " Wells says. " _And the wormholes create some powerful infrasound when they open._ "

" _So we can't hear it, but the technology can,_ " says Grayson. " _I dunno if you guys noticed, but when that Lisa chick went into her own wormhole, there was a huge pulse of splash across the screen for a split second._ "

"That means infrasound?" Cisco asks.

" _Yeah, it does. 'Course, since it's nighttime, it'll be harder to spot any - wait a minute._ " Grayson pauses, then says, " _Peter, by the lake! I just saw something!_ "

"You sure?" I look around wildly. "I don't - wait, you're right. I see it too!"

Light blooms above the strip of grass separating the path from the water, about twenty feet from my current position.

Under the light, a human figure materializes. Female, brunette, wielding a cell phone.

"No," Cisco breathes. "It's her. It's Lisa Snart!"

" _Again?_ " Barry grumbles. " _Great._ "

At the sound of her name, the girl perks up. A sweetly psychotic smile stretches across her face, and she draws a gun from underneath her jacket. Strangely, the gun looks like it's gold-plated.

"Isn't that a little heavy for you?" I ask. I'm not kidding - she looks like she's struggling to lift the thing.

"Oh, that's okay, honey," Lisa says. "I'm just here to wait for my brother and his crime buddy. And, of course, that hot piece of speedy ass, the Flash."

As if on cue, Barry zips up to us in a flash (haha, I didn't mean to make that pun) of yellow lightning. "Someone say my code name?" he asks.

Lisa cocks her golden gun. "Of course you're here first," she says. "Now I'm just waiting for the others to get here."

" _Guys, we got company! It's Captain Cold!_ " That's all Caitlin is able to yell over the line before the sounds of sci-fi-style weapons filter through the speakers on Cisco's phone.

"Go help them!" I order Barry. "We got this!"

"Just be careful with that gun of hers!" Barry calls back. "Unless you wanna know what it's like to shake hands with King Midas!" He disappears, running back to wherever Caitlin and Wells are at the moment.

"What does he mean..." Gwen muses. Then it dawns on her, as it does for me, and her face falls slightly. "Oh. Oh, that's gonna suck."

"You're telling me," I say, staring warily at the golden gun. I'm not sure who Aunt May would want to kill more if I got hit by that thing and turned into gold - Lisa, for shooting me; or me, for allowing myself to get shot and her to worry herself half to death.

"Shit," Lisa mutters. "I was really counting on joining my brother here."

"What's the matter?" I ask, matching her own sweet tones. "Your quantum GPS on the blink?" In a robotic, feminine voice, I say, "'Recalculating-'"

Lisa raises her gun and fires a warning shot, creating a large, glowing globule of molten gold. She steps aside, allowing it to land on the grass, where it starts to sizzle, cool, and solidify. "I'll just have to try again later," she says. The silver light appears over her head again, and she raises her hand up to it. "If I don't see Barry again for a while," she says, her hand slowly fading into the light, "say hi to him for me, would you?" With her free hand, she pockets her gun, blows us all a kiss, then disappears completely.

"Yeah," Cisco drawls, "that's definitely not the same Lisa Snart I remember. If anything, the one we dealt with was more obsessed with me than with Barry. And she hated my guts." He clears his throat, then looks down at his phone. Barry, Caitlin, and Wells are still fighting this Captain Cold character, judging from the sounds issuing from the speakers. I'd been told about him and Heat Wave, the two rogues who were some of the Flash's most annoying recurring nemeses. Other than Eobard Thawne, about whom Barry's expressed the fervent hope that they never meet again.

"We need to go help them out," I say, gesturing to the phone.

" _I was about to suggest the same thing,_ " Grayson says.

The sound of computer keys clacks through the speakers, then Olivia says, " _They're about a block east of CC Jitters._ "

"Follow me," Cisco says. "I know the way."

I nod as Gwen and I follow him past the concert once again, this time at a more brisk pace. "I just hope we don't run into any more wormholes!"


	10. I Never Understood The Frequency

_**CHAPTER 10: I NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE FREQUENCY**_

 *****PETER*****

Turns out I spoke too soon. Two blocks away from where Barry is still fighting Captain Cold, another wormhole pops into existence in front of us. Cisco, who's ahead of me and Gwen because he's leading the way, stops short and whispers, "Don't tell me it's Heat Wave."

I saw a picture of Heat Wave before heading out from the hotel, and this guy isn't him. He's not as big and intimidating, and he's downright ugly, especially with the huge sunglasses he's wearing over half his face.

Is it too much to hope that he was just wearing those sunglasses because it was broad daylight on the other side of the wormhole from whence he came?

"Excuse me?" I ask, waving at the guy. He doesn't respond, other than giving a thousand-yard stare right through me and the others. "Everything all right, buddy?"

No answer. This is even creepier than it sounds.

Seized by a sudden urge to quote one of my favorite books, I switch to French and ask the guy the same question (with one key change based on the current time of day) Dirk Pitt asked of the guys on the Benin gunboats in _Sahara: "Bonsoir! Pouvez-vous me recommander un bon restaurant?"_

"I speak English, you know," the guy says, sniffing loudly.

"So why didn't you talk to us?" Cisco mutters.

Pointing at the Captain Cold fight still in progress, Gwen says, "Well, we'd love to stay and chat, but we kinda have urgent business elsewhere, so if you please...?"

The guy raises his sunglasses, but Cisco's ready for him. He punches him in the face and runs past him. Gwen and I gape at the sight for a second before following him. "I take it this guy was seriously bad news?" I ask.

"We call him Rainbow Raider," Cisco says. "Never look him in the eye, especially when his eyes are glowing red. They'll really put the whammy on you, if you know what I mean."

"I don't think we wanna know what you mean," Gwen says.

"You should," Cisco says, "in case we face him again. But enough on Double-R for now - Captain Cold's demanding more of our attention!"

Actually, I'd say he's demanding more of Barry's attention. Which he's getting, as Barry's zipping around, dodging repeated shots of frigid blue energy. Cold, as a result, has truckloads of trouble locking on to any one spot long enough to nail his target. It's like a million video game boss battles I've played in my time, from _Crash Bandicoot_ to _Jak and Daxter_ to _Kingdom Hearts._ Except here, the boss has a weapon that could give Barry practically a one-hit kill, so it's absolutely imperative that he not take a single hit.

Caitlin and Wells have taken refuge behind a row of trees, but she's got an idea. As soon as Cold turns her way, she turns on her phone's flashlight. I've always hated it when people use those things - they're extremely bright, so looking at it even sideways can blind you for a second if you're not careful. But today, it proves to be very helpful, because even with his dark goggles, Cold is stunned by the sudden flash of white in front of him. He instinctively covers his eyes with his hand, then fires at Caitlin and Wells, who manage to jump out of the way just in time.

Equally instinctively, I hit my webshooter and snag the cold gun from his hands. I level it at its previous owner. I'm not sure exactly how to work it yet, but all I need to do is project power into my voice as I yell, "I don't think you're wearing enough layers for this, Common Cold!"

"That's _Captain_ Cold to you," he says, glaring at me.

"Yeah, thank you, Captain Obvious."

Barry stops running and appears at my side. "Dude, be careful with that thing," he says in the flattest tone of voice imaginable. I swear, he sounds like the Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka when one of the bad kids is misbehaving ("Stop, don't, come back...") "You could kill someone."

"I know." I raise the cold gun a little higher. "There should be another wormhole coming soon," I say. "Hopefully it'll send you on your merry way back home. And this, we'll keep," I add, patting the side of the gun. "As a souvenir, you know."

"Hmph." Cold raises his arms and takes a few steps back. "You might need it to fight that guy over there, anyway," he says, pointing behind us - I guess that Rainbow Raider must still be lurking around. As for Cold, he clicks his heels together and mutters, "There's no place like home, bitches."

His boots must not have the same magical properties as Dorothy's ruby slippers, because his invocation of that beloved movie catchphrase has zero effect.

"Look!" Wells takes his turn to point in Rainbow Raider's direction, as a plain white light from another wormhole surrounds him and swallows him up.

Shrugging, I say, "Guess Ice King here missed his shot."

"There'll probably be a million more - SHIT!" Barry vanishes, leaving behind nothing but a brief gust of wind and a spark of yellow lightning in his wake as he races after Captain Cold. Turns out, that really nice guy took advantage of our distraction and decided he'd try and punch my lights out to get his beloved gun back.

Ending up on the ground, Cold groans loudly, then takes off his goggles, which were cracked in his fall.

Barry stands back while Cold gets to his feet - and good thing too, because out of nowhere, Cold gets struck by a glowing yellowish beam.

No, not yellow. Gold. Molten gold, which quickly cools and solidifies all over his body.

That can only mean one thing - Lisa Snart is back. Except...why the hell would she turn her own brother into a half-melted modern sculpture?

"Do we seriously have to deal with you again already?" Cisco mutters as Lisa emerges from a nearby alley behind CC Jitters.

"What the hell was that for, anyway?" I ask, brandishing the cold gun at Captain Cold.

Lisa lowers her gold gun to the ground, then raises her hands in surrender just like her brother did. I, however, don't trust her, so even though I put the cold gun down as well, I have my webshooters ready to deploy at any second.

"I know, you guys must be confused as all freaking get-out right about now," says Lisa as she steps up to the supine form of the gold-plated Captain and nudges him with the toe of her own boot. "I'll tell you this much - this guy here? He's not Leonard. He's not my brother."

Unless she's playing a trick to gain our trust (not that she possibly could), I think I can speak for everyone when I say we're all shocked senseless by Lisa's words. Wells is the first one to clear his throat and speak up. "How much do you know?"

"It's been happening all day," Lisa says, getting to her knees and looking up at the sky. "Ever since that black hole or whatever it was."

" _Breaker, breaker,_ " Grayson says on Cisco's phone, which he's kept in his pocket since we left Shasta Shore Park. Once he's done with his trucker-on-the-radio impression, he says, " _If that's the real Lisa Snart - in which case, would she please stand up? - bring her back to the hotel, now._ "

"You think we really need to do that to get her to talk?" Gwen asks.

" _Trust me,_ " says Olivia. " _I have an idea._ "

"It's as good a plan as any," Barry says. He gets Lisa back on her feet and walks her back to the hotel with us.

When we get to my room, however, Grayson looks around and says, "Yeah, there are too many of us in here. Maybe you can take the interview to your room, Olivia?"

"Good idea," she says. "But before that, I think you guys could do with a demonstration of what I'm about to do next."

"Uh..." Grayson looks nervous. "Uh, well, maybe this isn't the best time-"

"If we wanna know what she knows," Olivia says, gesturing to Lisa, "she needs to know what'll happen if she tries to lie."

Suddenly, Grayson's sweet, ice-cream-loving librarian of a girlfriend sounds every bit as dangerous as one of today's wormhole villains. Lisa, in particular, looks like she's on the point of shitting her pants.

It only gets worse when Olivia turns to me and says, "Sorry, Peter. You're gonna be my demonstration dummy for today. I promise, this is not gonna hurt."

"What, you mean like...like how a shot's not supposed to hurt?"

Another unexpected move - she wraps her arms around me. "You guys can all hate me later," she says to the room at large before tilting her head back slightly and gazing into my eyes.

"What are you-" I begin, and then it happens. Her eyes change from brown to a softly glowing red. Right away, I hear Cisco cry out in shock and try to wrest me away from Olivia, but he fails miserably.

In fact, what the hell was he thinking, trying to break the two of us apart? I can totally see now why Grayson's head over heels for her. In Olivia's arms, I feel safe, comforted.

Even...even loved.

Feeling my own eyes start to tear up just a bit, I return Olivia's embrace, then lean down and kiss her on the lips.

That's when she herself breaks away from me, looking down sadly. "Again, Peter, I'm really sorry," she says.

"Why are you sorry?" I ask, bemused. "I thought you loved me."

Barry runs in front of me and snaps his fingers. "Peter, are you all right?"

Blinking rapidly, I look around and see expressions of horror on everyone's faces - especially Gwen's. Then I turn back to Olivia, who's looking less horrified and more guilty. And I remember... "Oh my God," I say. "Did I really just...?"

"Yeah," Caitlin breathes.

"You, my friend, just got whammied," Cisco says.

"But how?" asks Barry. "Are you related to Rainbow-"

"I don't think so," Olivia says.

"We've never heard of this Rainbow Raider dude before today," Grayson says. "And no, she's never been to Central City before - definitely not when the first particle accelerator explosion happened, if that's what you're about to ask."

I turn to Gwen and take her hand. She flinches away from me, but only for a second. "I'm so sorry, Gwen," I say, feeling even more on the verge of tears than before.

She asks Grayson, "Do you mind if I sleep in this room tonight instead of you?"

"Go right ahead," Grayson says solemnly.

Olivia stands up, swallows, and says, "Yeah, I don't blame you. I wouldn't share a room with me either."

At this point, Lisa bursts out laughing. "Is that your idea of interrogating me? Girl-on-girl make-out?"

"What's wrong with that?" Olivia asks with an awkward laugh.

Shaking his head, Grayson says, "Actually, Olivia doesn't just have to make you fall in love with her. She can manipulate any emotion as needed."

"But, like Grayson and the sonar thing," Olivia says emphatically, "I only save my power for special occasions. And you definitely qualify."

"What?" Lisa looks beyond terrified now.

"Seriously," Olivia says, taking her hand and marching her out the door. "All you gotta do is cooperate with us, and you'll have nothing to fear."

After she's out, Grayson and Barry follow her. Cisco, Caitlin, and Wells are the last to leave, delivering us awkward goodbyes. "We'll be back in the morning, guys," Cisco says. "Don't worry - we'll get to the bottom of this monkey business, or your money back."

"I doubt that," Gwen chuckles, waving goodbye as Cisco closes the door. She then looks down at the floor and clenches her fist for a second. "Shit, all my baggage is still in my room. Guess I'll just have to take a shower in the morning."

"Yeah..." I can't bring myself to talk about what happened just yet, so I grab myself a change of clothes and hit the shower myself, feeling very guilty that Gwen won't have the opportunity to do so herself. She does, however, assure me that she'll be fine without one for now anyway. Although, as I scrub myself under the warm water, I reflect that it wouldn't be a bad idea for her to join me - which, of course, she doesn't.

When I'm out of the shower and toweling my head off (I got dressed before returning to the room to avoid that cliché of a guy coming out of the shower in nothing but a towel and getting the girl all hot and bothered), I sit next to Gwen on one of the beds - the one that's supposed to be for Grayson - and hug her tightly. "It wasn't real," I whisper into her ear. "It felt so real, but it wasn't."

"You don't need me to forgive you," Gwen says, turning so my mouth is pressed against her forehead. "But I know someone who does."

Scoffing, I ask, "What would you do for revenge? Kiss Grayson?"

Gwen pretends to mark that on a notepad. "Not a bad idea. Thanks."

As I nearly fall over laughing, Gwen pushes me onto my bed and kisses my cheek. "Good night, Peter," she says with a smile.

"Good night," I say, pulling up the sheets so I can slide underneath them. "God, I just hope nobody catches us sharing a room tonight."

"If anyone does," Gwen laughs, walking over to the light switch, "I'll be sure to describe to them how good you are in bed. In _excruciating_ detail."


	11. Wonder Who's Crying Now

_**CHAPTER 11: WONDER WHO'S CRYING NOW**_

 *****BARRY*****

Olivia and Grayson lead Lisa into their hotel room, and Cisco and Caitlin are quick to follow them in. I, however, hang back for a short while.

Spending a huge chunk of my formative years and beyond living with a cop had its benefits. Among them - developing my character-judging skills. Seeing Olivia's metahuman ability in action, I was floored. I completely didn't expect someone so sweet and charming to have the same sort of easily-used-for-evil power as Roy G. Bivolo. I'm still convinced that there's no way she can be a bad guy...can she? But, after the display I just saw with her and Peter, I'm afraid I might just have to add her to my steadily growing list of Allies I Can't Completely Trust.

"You coming in, Barry?" Wells asks, poking his head out the door before he can close it completely.

"Just a minute," I say. "I'm gonna call Joe, give him an update."

"Joe?" Wells asks, scratching his head.

Oh yeah - this Wells doesn't know all our people just yet. "He's a cop," I say. "And my adopted dad. So he's one of us."

"As long as he's not secretly working for someone like General Eiling," Wells says.

"You know him?" I ask.

"He's always been a bit of a thorn in STAR Labs' metaphorical side," Wells says. "Well, I'll just leave you to it, then. I'll let you in when you're ready."

"Sure. Thanks."

Glancing down the corridor, I see a small chair perched in an alcove. I sit in that chair, facing a potted orchid on a table under a watercolor fruit-bowl still-life. Typical hotel decor, I guess. I've not been in too many of them. Hotels, that is. The number of times I've left Central City for more than a day (or a couple of minutes to run down to Coast City and pick up some of everyone's favorite pizza), I can count them on one hand.

I unlock my phone and dial Joe's number. For some reason, I still dial the whole number from memory, rather than just go into the contacts menu and tap the screen on his name and face. In the words of Bob Seger: "Call me a relic, call me what you will. Say I'm old-fashioned, say I'm over the hill."

One ring...two...then he answers. "Hi, Barry. It's been a long night for you, huh?"

"You're telling me." I stare up at the painted fruit bowl, feeling like its bright colors are mocking me. "It's not gonna be over for a while, so don't wait up for me."

"I was afraid of that."

Silence. Tense, awkward silence. "How's...uh, how's Iris holding up?"

"Not very well," Joe says. "I made dinner, and she wouldn't eat. Tomato soup, too."

I laugh lightly - tomato soup's a favorite in the West family, but with Iris having just sustained the loss of her boyfriend, it's totally understandable that she won't even go for that always-reliable comfort food.

"I wish I could be there," I say, "but-"

Joe interrupts me. "That goes without saying. But if you need to see this through, don't let us stop you." He clears his throat. "Everybody grieves differently, Barry. Metahumans included."

We both laugh at his weak joke. "Hey," I say, "if I end up somehow falling asleep on the job, there are other superheroes in town now. We can pick up each other's slack if we have to."

"'Superheroes?'" Joe repeats. "Plural?"

"Yeah," I say. "You already saw Spider-Man, right? Well, we've also got Nightwing."

"As in Gotham City's Nightwing?"

"That's the one. And it turns out his girlfriend's a metahuman too."

Joe whistles. "Will wonders never cease? Sounds like you guys have your hands full."

"We're managing," I say. "Right now we're trying to talk to one of our old friends."

"I take it you mean that in the sarcastic sense?"

I scoff. "Do you really have to ask?"

I can almost see Joe nodding along with me on his end. "Well," he says, "don't let me keep you. And don't stay up too late dealing with this 'old friend.'" Here, I can definitely see him holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder while doing air quotes to a (presumably empty) room. "If you find yourself downing quadruple espressos like they're water-"

"I already do that," I laugh.

"Hard to believe you're still single," Joe deadpans. "Well, good night. And I mean it, don't stay up too late. It's hard enough for me when I have to do that. You're only an amateur detective."

"I assure you, I know my limits. Good night."

Hanging up, I gaze at the fruit bowl painting once again. As a kid, when I was in the midst of a serious _Harry Potter_ phase, I would always try to tickle any pears in those paintings, hoping they would giggle and turn into doorknobs. Tonight, though, I feel no such urge. Childlike innocence doesn't really have a place at this moment.

I knock on the door, and Wells lets me in. He, Cisco, and Caitlin are all standing near the door, with Grayson perched on one of the two beds, one leg crossed in a figure-four. Olivia and Lisa, however, are nowhere to be seen. However, I do hear one of the two ladies (most likely Lisa) crying, the sound muffled through the wall separating the bathroom from the main room.

"She's really doing it, isn't she?" I ask, my stomach churning. "Giving her the whammy?"

"Honestly," Grayson says, "without actually seeing it in action, I can't tell. But from what these guys have said about Lisa, I doubt she's much of a crier, so..."

I look at the others in disbelief. "And you guys are just gonna stand here and listen to it happen?"

"Hey, this guy said her powers get results," Cisco says, gesturing to Grayson.

Crossing her arms, Caitlin says, "I don't like it either, but I don't know what else we can do."

The door opens, and Olivia emerges, her hands over her eyes for a second. She then uncovers them and looks down at Grayson. "You're good," he says.

"Tell that to Lisa," I say as she follows Olivia out, barely able to walk for weeping.

"Blue, right?" Grayson asks. Without waiting for an answer, he zips up his hoodie, connecting the two halves of the blue chevron, then steps up to Lisa and hugs her. He actually buries her head in his chest, undoubtedly covering it with her tears. But it does the trick - when she lets go of him, she says she's feeling much better.

When Roy was doing his thing and making people go psycho in public, it usually fell upon me to restore them back to normal with my speed, because the flash of red was the same color his eyes turned when he made people go crazy. Apparently, red's the color of love as well, because the same tactic was able to snap Peter out of his "I'm so hopelessly in love with Olivia" spell. And as for Lisa, it seems blue was able to fix her up - which makes sense given the color's connotations of sadness.

Wiping the tear stains from his hoodie as best he can, Grayson says, "I switched to a red outfit recently, but I still keep this blue hoodie on hand in case Olivia goes with her 'desolation' style of interrogation."

"Does that happen very often?" I ask.

"Not really," Olivia says. "Because sadness tends to not work on sociopaths."

"Should I take that as a compliment?" Lisa asks as she stands in the corner and blows her nose. "That I'm apparently not a sociopath?"

"I would," I say. "So, did all this torture get us anything to work with?"

"Not really." Olivia sits next to Grayson, her shoulders slumped. "Nothing she hadn't said before, anyway. I got this much, though - she and her 'Rogue' friends, Captain Cold and Heat Wave...they killed two sets of doppelgängers in the first twelve hours after the black hole."

"Which implies that there are multiple copies of each of them showing up," I say.

"And that," Wells says, "suggests that there are multiple parallel universes being linked to ours through the wormholes."

Yawning, Cisco says, "Maybe if I were a little more awake, I could probably do a better job of sensing them."

"Really?" Grayson asks.

"Trust me," Cisco says, brushing his hair behind his ears, "I've picked up on parallel universes a few more times than I'd care to admit. The things I saw, some of them weren't pretty."

"They're better left unsaid," I say, "unless they really have to be discussed." I turn to Wells. "But let's just say this - if we see any more of you, don't be surprised if we have to kill them."

"Why does it have to be mostly bad guys, though?" Caitlin asks. "Why can't we get more good guys? We've got Wells. What about Eddie?"

Thinking about Iris again, I say, "I know, I wish he was back too." I shrug, rubbing my neck. "But we gotta play the cards we're dealt."

At this point, we all decide to go our separate ways for the night. Lisa goes out of town to return to wherever she and her comrades are holed up - but before she leaves, Cisco surreptitiously plants a chip in her jacket pocket, allowing him to track her. Until she inevitably discovers the chip, that is, and presumably crushes it, cutting off the signal after less than ten minutes. By this time, I'm finally home, Cisco and Caitlin are off to their places, and Wells has agreed to stay the night with the former.

When I get home, Iris has crashed on the couch, and Joe's draping a blanket over her. "She just stared into space for hours," he whispers, "until just now."

Poor girl. I resolve to ask her if she'd like to help us out in the morning. Maybe if she's got something to occupy her time - especially since the younger ones are supposed to be at CCU for the second and final day of their weekend tour tomorrow - she can feel better.

Until then, I kiss my fingertips, then touch the side of her sleepy head. I'm almost afraid I'll wake her up, but no, she's sound asleep, having clearly cried herself into that state.

As it turns out, though, I don't even need to ask for her help. I barely open my mouth to say "Good morning" when she says, "Please tell me there's something I can do for you guys."

I crane my neck and see Joe rooting around in the fridge for orange juice. "You brought her up to speed?"

"With what I knew, at least," he says, pouring himself a glass. "I'm sure you can fill her in on the rest."

I check my watch - it's eight o'clock. We barely got six hours of sleep each. But by now, I'm sure Peter, Gwen, Grayson, and Olivia are on their way to CCU. So, with that, I lead Iris out the door, and we make our way downtown. Unbelievably, she agrees to let me speed her to CC Jitters along with me.

"Let me guess," says the barista, a favorite of ours named Ginny McCall, as she sees us. "Quadruple espresso for you?"

"Nah," I laugh. "That's a little too much for me."

"Really?" Ginny laughs back, a smile forming on her face. "You looked in a mirror lately? That was what my friend looked like after we went to Spain. Days of jet lag..." She shudders, wringing her hands. Then she perks up as the bell over the door rings. "Holy crap, speak of the devil!"

"What?" Iris and I turn around, seeing two people come in. One, like me, is a very tall guy. The other is a pale blonde girl with dark rings around her eyes, visible even at a distance.

"Nah, false alarm," Ginny says. "That girl just looks exactly the way my friend did."

Iris and I place our orders, then we sit at a table and wait. We don't talk, though. Instead, we silently overhear the conversation between these two new customers. The guy, who looks like he could be Indian (not unlike Ginny, whom I believe is half-Indian), says in an English accent, "Right, Liv, you tell me - how would you go about looking for wormholes in a crowded, half-destroyed city?"

"Gee, I dunno," Liv snarks. "I'm just the office zombie, Ravi. In more ways than one."

"Your fake-ditzy attitude infuriates me sometimes," Ravi says. "Did you know that? If not, you should." Ginny gets his attention, and he turns to her and says, "Ah, yeah - Chocolate Dalmatian for me, and a Cinna-Mocha for the lady. Large, both."

"And extra cinnamon, please," Liv says. "Lots of it. Maybe even add some cinnamon jelly beans if you got 'em?"

Ginny grins at her. "I like you," she says.

"I only take it hot 'cause I'm a zombie," Liv laughs. "Trust me - I may not look like much, but I'm an undead alabaster badass!"

"Badasses are always welcome here," Ginny says, ringing up their orders and taking their money.

I can't hold back any longer - these two have really piqued my interest. While they wait for their unusual drinks (one extra-sweet, the other extra-spicy), I stand up, approach their table, and ask, "Did I hear you guys talking about wormholes just now?"

Liv looks at her traveling companion with a dangerous grin. "Ravi, did you go and tell your online gaming group about our secret mission?"

"Of course not," Ravi says shortly. "Come on, Liv, how long have you known me? Have I not earned your confidence yet?"

"It's a shame you don't believe me," she says, looking from him to me, "'cause it seems like this guy knows what we're here for. Don't you, Slim?"

"They call me 'Barry' around these parts, actually," I laugh. "And yeah, I know a thing or two about the wormholes of Central City. Where would you like to start?"


End file.
